Kyle Gervais

The renowned scholar-poet John of Garland wrote the Integumenta Ovidii (“Allegories on Ovid”) in early thirteenth-century Paris at a time of renewed interest in Classical Latin literature. In this short poem, John offers a series of dense, highly allusive allegories on various Greek and Roman myths in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. This important but difficult work has fascinated and challenged generations of modern students and scholars. The text is here edited and translated for the first time in 90 years, drawing on the evidence of over two dozen manuscripts. Comprehensive explanatory notes help readers to understand John’s condensed allegories in their medieval context. Textual notes discuss the various difficulties in the transmitted text of the poem, and offer several improvements on the texts of the older editions.

Brill’s Companion to Statius is the first companion volume to be published on arguably the most important Roman poet of the Flavian period. Thirty-four newly commissioned chapters from international experts provide a comprehensive overview of recent approaches to Statius, discuss the fundamental issues and themes of his poetry, and suggest new fruitful areas for research. All of his works are considered: the Thebaid, his longest extant epic; the Achilleid, his unfinished epic; and the Silvae, his collected short poetry. Particular themes explored include the social, cultural, and political issues surrounding his poetry; his controversial aesthetic; the influence of his predecessors upon his poetry; and the scholarly and literary reception of his poetry in subsequent ages to the present.

I examine a dialogue between the Renaissance Supplements to Virgil's Aeneid by Pier Candido Decembrio and Maffeo Vegio. I argue that Decembrio's short poem is not unfinished but instead provides the Iliadic ending to the Aeneid that Virgil withholds, namely a lament over Turnus's body to match the lament over Hector at the end of Iliad 24. I then argue that Decembrio's poem presents us with a dangerously unstable situation in Italy, dominated by commemorations of Turnus in such heroic terms that they threaten to displace Virgil's hero Aeneas from primacy in his own story. Vegio's response "corrects" this portrayal of Turnus in favour of a more orthodox Virgilian narrative in which Turnus is a tragically misguided enemy of Aeneas's divine mission to Italy. I conclude with a new edition and translation of Decembrio's Supplement, drawing on both of the extant manuscripts and addressing several textual difficulties.

I argue that Aeneas’ companion Achates evokes the ancient etymologies of Aeneas from αἰνὸν ἄχος and Achilles from ἄχος. In the second half of the Aeneid, Achates signals the link between Achilles’ and Aeneas’ pain at the deaths of their friends Patroclus and Pallas ; Achates’ epithet fidus emphasizes Aeneas’ failed fides with Evander as a source of his grief. Aeneas is faced with conflicting obligations of fides in the finale but kills Turnus in the grip of a disturbing ἄχος.

I offer a close intertextual reading of the epilogue to Statius' Thebaid (12.810-19) that incorporates the epic and non-epic works of Lucretius, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, and Lucan; I identify nine previously unnoticed or undiscussed intertexts, and examine others in a new light. In this epilogue we find, first, a deep unease with the purposes of imperial Roman epic and the place of the Thebaid within that genre, and second, a bold attempt to separate Roman epic from the Roman empire in order to carve out a new kind of poetic immortality.

The text of Aeneid 7.5 (at pius exsequiis Aeneas rite solutis), on the rites performed for Caieta, is suspicious for several reasons, most notably the unparalleled sedes of Aeneas (beginning in the middle of a foot). I argue that Virgil wrote at pius Aeneas sacris iam rite solutis, and that exsequiis is an intrusive gloss (evidence for which may be found in the ancient manuscripts). With sacris, Virgil seems to be suggesting cult honours as part of a complex allusion to Apollonius’ Argonautica and Callimachus’ Hecale. I also discuss four verse passages in Ovid, Petronius, and Columella to argue that sacris would suggest a cult and, especially, that Ovid and Columella had a text of Virgil with sacris, not exsequiis. This emendation is printed in the text of G. B. Conte's editio altera of the Aeneid (Teubner, 2019).

I argue that various allusion to Aeneid 12 in Thebaid 12 abridge the earlier narrative, cutting out difficult scenes so that Theseus and Creon’s duel becomes a more straightforward battle between right and wrong than that of Aeneas and Turnus. These “abridging allusions” are one of several techniques used to thematize narrative speed in Thebaid 12, in contrast to the thematization of delay in earlier books. I first discuss delay as a central feature in the two epics, then examine Statius’ abridging allusions and situate them in various ongoing debates about the poem and its relationship with the Aeneid.

At Theb. 2.320 print cura or cura est (plerique codd.) not curis. At 501 print nocendi (nonnulli codd.) not latendi. At 631 print illo (Watt) not illa. At 685 print mersum (Gervais) not plenum. At 693 print aetheros (Gervais) not aeris.

© 2014 Cambridge University Press

I discuss Adrastus’ tale of Linus and Coroebus (Theb. 1.557-668), Hypsipyle’s Lemnian tale (5.17-498), and Statius’ address to his poem in the epilogue (12.810-19). Reading through the first two inset (“metadiegetic”) narratives with an eye to intertextuality and intratextuality, I argue that they offer sustained examinations of parent–child conflict: dangerous offspring, cruel or negligent parents, and especially the deaths of children. I then turn to the epilogue, which is marked by particularly rich intertextuality. I argue that here, Statius figures the Thebaid as his child, which he sends away into an uncertain future. I uncover a “filicidal voice” that runs through the poem, culminating in Statius’ address to the dead sons of Oedipus (11.574-9), but also detectable in the epilogue; this voice stands in conflict with Statius’ pose as a worried father at the end of the epic. I conclude that the gloomy view of parent–child relationships in the two long inset narratives reflects Statius’ ambivalent relationship with his own poetic “child”. At the end I turn briefly to consider the death of Opheltes, which draws a strong connection between the death of children and the death of narration.

A close intertextual reading of Tydeus’ monomachy in Statius, Thebaid 2.527–723 uncovers a surprising range of self-contradictory heroic and monstrous models for his actions, drawn from throughout Latin epic. This intertextual confusion is connected with five important symbols and three important themes in the poem.

"While Telamon appears in most previous accounts of the Calydonian boar hunt, Ixion never does. Instead we find Ixion’s son, Pirithous. Lactantius explains: Ixiona: Pirithoum significari uidetur, Ixionis filius. Subsequent scholars have not questioned this perverse reading, but the text is clearly corrupt.

Statius wrote iam natum Ixione."

"In this chapter I explore ways of viewing violence in the Thebaid.  Like other authors in this book and elsewhere, I look to film studies for a theoretical framework. I do not, however, work much with psychoanalytical or feminist film theory;  rather, I adopt some ideas from the broad and developing field of cognitive film theory. In particular, I work with Murray Smith’s ideas about ‘character engagement’  and Paul Gormley’s articulation of the relationship between ‘affect’ and ‘meaning’.  But my writing is not primarily theoretical. Instead, I compare three representative scenes of violence from the Thebaid – the battle of Tydeus against the fifty Thebans (2.496-743), Hypsipyle’s account of the Lemnian massacre (5.28-498) and the mutual fratricide of Polynices and Eteocles (11.403-573) – with three scenes from the films of Quentin Tarantino – the ‘Showdown at House of Blue Leaves’ in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), the ‘ear-cutting’ scene in Reservoir Dogs (1992) and the assassination of Hitler in Inglourious Basterds (2009).

While classicists have traditionally confined themselves to the study of films set in the ancient world,  the application of film theory to classical texts implies that modern cinema and classical literature share many preoccupations and can be studied together.  Thus, I do not argue for any ties of reception between the poetry of Statius and the cinema of Tarantino; instead, I suggest that author and auteur  work with violence in similar ways.  Both foreground vision in their presentations of violence.  Both present scenes of extreme violence that provoke affective responses.  And both set against these responses complex intertextual and cultural signifiers.

These last two points shape my arguments throughout the three comparisons in this chapter. First (discussing Thebaid 2 and Kill Bill Vol. 1), I show that the affective power of violence, figured as φαντασία in ancient epic, is blunted by intertextuality, which reminds the audience of its position outside of the fiction on display. Next (Thebaid 5 and Reservoir Dogs), I argue that author and filmmaker exploit affect, intertextuality and cultural knowledge to manipulate the role of the viewer of violence, suggesting in the end that viewing violence is a choice. Finally (Thebaid 11 and Inglourious Basterds) I show how Statius and Tarantino, at the climaxes of their works, remove all internal viewers with whom the audience could easily engage or whose gaze could invest the violent spectacles with meaning.
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Critical discussions of Hor. Carm. I, 36 are rare, and fail adequately to consider two important points. First, although written in honour of the otherwise unknown Numida, the poem’s implied addressee is L. Aelius Lamia,( ) a member of a distinguished family that Horace mentions three times in the Odes (I, 26, 8; I, 36, 7; III, 17, 1; also at Ep. I, 14, 6.), carefully shaping his literary presentation to fit with important thematic concerns of the Odes. Second, and perhaps unexpectedly, Carm. I, 36 shares several unappreciated verbal links with Carm. I, 24 on the death of Quintilius, which can hardly be dismissed as meaningless.

I will address each of these two issues in turn, demonstrating first that literary analyses have misidentified the L. Aelius Lamia of the Odes and have failed to appreciate how Horace constructs his personality, and then that the place of the Numida ode in Horace’s first book—especially its links with the Quintilius ode—involve it in a sustained meditation on the uneasy relationship between the poetic-sympotic realm and the cares and dangers that surround it. I end with a brief reading of the Numida ode that takes these factors into consideration, and show that the effect of the poem lies in the tension between (on the surface) a simple description of a wild homecoming celebration and (more subtly) a reflection on such weighty issues as aging and death, the ephemeral nature of youth and love, and the tension between poetic-sympotic securitas and the vagaries of a world ruled by Fortune and death.

I offer three readings of the Lemnian episode narrated by Hypsipyle in book five of the Thebaid, each based upon an interpretive tension created by textual, intertextual, and cultural factors and resolved by the death of Opheltes, the child nursed by Hypsipyle. In the first reading (chapter two), I suggest that Hypsipyle emphasizes the questionable nature of the evidence for the involvement of Venus and other divinities in the Lemnian massacre, which is on the surface quite obvious, as a subconscious strategy to deal with her fear of divine retribution against her and Opheltes. In the second reading (chapter three), I argue that much of the violence of the massacre is eroticized, primarily by allusions to Augustan elegy and Ovidian poetry, and that this eroticism challenges a straightforward, horrified reaction to the Lemnian episode. In the third reading (chapter four), which continues the argument of the second, I suggest that the reaction of Statius’ audience to the Lemnian massacre was influenced by familiarity with the violent entertainment offered in the Roman arena, and that this encouraged the audience to identify with the perpetrators of the massacre rather than the victims. The problematization of the audience’s reaction and of the divine involvement in the massacre is resolved by the death of Opheltes, which is portrayed as both undeniably supernatural in origin and emphatically tragic in nature. Thus, as the first half of the Thebaid draws to a close, Statius decisively affirms the power of the gods and the horrific tragedy of violence and prepares to embark upon the war in the Thebaid’s second half, which will end ultimately with the double fratricide of the sons of Oedipus and Statius’ prayer for future generations to forget this sin.

https://youtu.be/xjXKIdPaDJ8
This talk focuses on some overlooked characters in, and receptions of, Virgil’s Aeneid. In the first section, I will discuss the text of Aeneid 7.5, where Aeneas buries Caieta before setting sail for Latium. I have argued for an emendation to this line, which has been printed in G. B. Conte’s revised Teubner edition of the Aeneid. With the corrected text, Caieta is given cult honours like those afforded to Anchises and several other Trojan heroes in the first half of the poem. So, along with discussing my rationale for the emendation, I will also briefly consider what it means to the poem that cult honours are also extended to Aeneas’ nurse.

In the second section, I will discuss Achates. This shadowy character seems to always be at Aeneas’ side, and is invariably faithful—so much so that fidus Achates is still in the dictionary in the sense of “a faithful friend”. But what does he mean? Some scholars say “nothing”. Others have seen in him representations of everything from the Iliad, to Virgil himself, to the Punic hero Aqht. I think the key lies in his name, which was etymologized via the Greek akhos (“pain, grief”). Aeneas thus has “pain” as his constant companion: like Homer’s Achilles, whose name was also etymologized via akhos, he brings pain with him wherever he goes, pain for himself and for others. And this pain in fidus, “faithful”, because all of the most painful moments in Aeneas’ story—Dido, Pallas, Turnus—involve broken bonds of fides.

I will end with a brief tour of two moments in the reception at the Aeneid where Virgil’s successors “completed” real or perceived imperfections in the poem. Several poets in antiquity pointedly “completed” some of the half-lines that Virgil left in the Aeneid upon his death. Then I will touch on a short poem by a 17th-century Jesuit missionary in New France, who laments the Aeneas-like suffering of his fellow missionaries but claims for them a Christian redemption beyond what the pagan Virgil could have imagined (and in the process, neatly folds the sufferings of various Indigenous peoples into a pernicious colonial narrative).

http://iconoclastuwo.com/uncategorized/iconocast-inaugural-episode-mythic-2/
Welcome to ICONOCAST, our collective’s companion podcast! Our inaugural episode delves further into the themes of MYTHIC with a few guests. We spoke with Directors Nara Monteiro and Jerika Caduhada, poet and ICON contributor Danielle Solo, and Dr. Kyle Gervais, Professor and Graduate Chair of Classics here at Western.
This podcast was produced by Nara Monteiro and Emily Chiarvesio, hosted by Aisha Khan and Eva Alie, and edited by Toria Obeng. Special thanks to Radio Western.

Elegy for Nigel (the lonely gannet) "Nigel the lonely gannet dies as he lived, surrounded by concrete birds" (The Guardian, Feb. 2, 2018). With headlines like this, the world learned of the life and tragic death of Nigel, the lone Australasian gannet on a tiny island off the coast of New Zealand. Nigel stayed there for five years, pair-bonded to one of eighty concrete decoys set up in the hopes of luring a gannet colony back to the island. He built a nest for his "mate", groomed her concrete feathers, and sang her songs she could never hear. He died just weeks after three more gannets arrived on the islandbirds he ignored in his final days to stay with his concrete friends. This story of mad, hopeless, isolating love struck me as elegiac in the ancient sense, and I knew just how to start Nigel's elegy once I learned that gannets belong to the genus Morus, Latin for "fool" (since breeding gannets do not fear humans, a foolish trait indeed).

I offer an intertextual analysis of a medieval Pseudo-Ovidian metamorphosis (found in the margins of a fourteenth-century manuscript of the Metamorphoses). This forty-four-line hexameter poem, which details the sexual misconduct of a flamen dialis with a band of Vestals and their subsequent metamorphosis into chickens, engages in sustained and sophisticated fashion with Classical Latin poetry. The poem’s many allusions not only establish its Virgilian-Ovidian credentials, but also articulate its central theme (love as a blasphemous, destructive force) and advance a self-conscious claim to the poem’s place within the long tradition of Latin poetry that stretches back to the Classical period.