This dissertation examines the themes of geography and space in the poetry of the late antique Latin poet Prudentius (348-c.405 CE). The first chapter discusses the geography of reading, and suggests that Prudentius’ Peristephanon provides a means for the reader to experience the sites of the cults of the martyrs by reading about them rather than by having to travel to see them. It is also argued that the varying orders of the poems of the Peristephanon in the manuscript tradition can be explained by the differing interests of early readers, and that the arrangement extant in one group of manuscripts can be seen to be the result of organising the poems to fit a geographical itinerary. The second chapter investigates the intertextual aspect of literary journeys, and argues that late antique descriptions of journeys are as much indebted to the literary tradition as they are to “lived” experience on the part of the narrator. This chapter focuses in particular on Ausonius' Mosella, and the third, ninth, and eleventh hymns of Prudentius' Peristephanon. The third chapter discusses the representation of the city in the works of Prudentius, and shows how Prudentius’ approach to the civic nature of martyrdom in the Peristephanon must be related to the contemporary Christian perception that earthly civic obligations are not fundamentally incompatible with participation in the heavenly city of the afterlife. The fourth chapter examines the representation of pastoral spaces in the Liber Cathemerinon and the discussion of farming and religion in the Contra Orationem Symmachi. The final chapter addresses Prudentius' descriptions of works of art and architecture, particularly churches, and argues that Prudentius exhibits a marked preference for the word over the image as a means of conveying knowledge. A brief conclusion suggests that Prudentius’ representation of physical and imaginary spaces is always governed by a belief in the primacy of the written word, and by a fundamentally bookish approach to the world.

Zugl.: Münster (Westfalen), Univ., Habil.-Schr., 2004

Zugl.: Jena, Univ., Diss., 2007

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1984. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 265-271).

Münster, Univ., Diss., 1874.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Münster, 1981. / Vita. Includes index. Bibliography: p. 171-175.

Zugl.: Jena, Univ., Diss., 2007.

This thesis is a commentary on lines 1-650 of Prudentius’ hymn to the martyr Romanus. Although printed in modern editions as the tenth poem of Prudentius’ Peristephanon, a collection of poems on various martyrs, certain features of the work in form and content differentiate it from the rest of the collection. These features include its length (1,140 verses; almost twice as long as Peristephanon 2, the second longest), its title, its place in manuscript transmission, the fact that the city where Romanus’ martyrdom takes place is never mentioned, and the inclusion of long sections of anti-pagan invective. This commentary aims to investigate its singularity and attempts to establish how it fits into Prudentius’ oeuvre. In the commentary proper I provide a general philological and historical elucidation of the text. I particularly focus on language, on identifying and interpreting allusions, and on discussing themes that recur in Prudentius’ works as well as contemporary and earlier literature. In the Introduction I offer an overview of the life and works of the poet; the dating; the textual transmission; other extant sources on the martyr Romanus and the relationship between them; the question of whether this poem belonged to the collection of the Peristephanon; and generic and particular influences on the poem from both Christian and secular literature, which are often combined in the text in interesting ways. The exploration of all these aspects of the text together with the close reading offered in the commentary itself contribute to a fuller understanding of this remarkably complex work.

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