Epic as Elegy

Abstract

This article contributes to the discussion on the significance of the Latin Love Elegy, with regard to its language, themes and conventions, as a means of generic innovation in Valerius Flaccus’Argonautica. In particular, it will be demonstrated that in the scenes of lament and separation that take place in books 2 and 3, Valerius incorporates a selection of elegiac themes and motifs to enhance the effect and sensationalism of these episodes as well as the pathos in the rhetoric of his female protagonists (in particular the Lemnian wives and Hypsipyle as well as Clite, the wife of king Cyzicus). At the same time he will be seen to take a step further by inverting and/or refashioning some of these topoi and tropes so as to leave his own metapoetic comment on his negotiations with other genres in theArgonautica.

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