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Propertius: Poet of Love and Leisure. By ALISON KEITH. London: Duckworth, 
2008. Pp. 214. Paper, $33.00. ISBN 978–0–7156–3453–0.

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CJ Online 2009.09.05

Propertius: Poet of Love and Leisure is Alison Keith’s (K.) contribution
to Duckworth’s series “Classical Literature and Society,” which
proposes to discuss authors primarily in relation to genre, theme and
social context. For Propertius, that entails chapters on his biography, his
relation to literary tradition and Roman rhetoric, and the interaction of
his poetry with issues of empire. The book’s intended audience is a
little harder to peg. The series preface speaks of Greekless and Latinless
readers, even readers with little knowledge of ancient civilization—but
this book is pitched above the heads of those readers, who would need more
context to understand Propertius’ place in early imperial Rome and would
not benefit much from, for example, the extended comparison of
Propertius’ Latin to Meleager’s Greek (p. 46), even if everything is
glossed. [[1]] It is better pitched at Classics undergraduates or even
graduate students first embarking on study of Propertius. For such
students, K. offers a thorough, up-to-date and thoughtful introduction to
Propertian elegy. There is no recent work to recommend in this vein. Of the
trio from the 1970s, Steele Commager’s Prolegomenon to Propertius is
narrowly focused and out-of-print; Margaret Hubbard’s Propertius and J.P.
Sullivan’s Propertius remain valuable, but recent scholarship has
rendered them a bit out-of-date. The 2006 Brill’s Companion is in no
one’s price-range. K.’s book fills the gap.

The opening chapter offers a solid biography of Propertius. K. is a
cautious biographer, and thereby teaches her reader to be so too. A
sentence at the end of the chapter is worth noting: “the relations
outlined here press the available evidence as far as it can reasonably be
pursued” (p. 18). Each term—press, available, evidence, reasonably,
pursue—is important when it comes to Propertian biography. Little
information is available, and controversy lurks under every piece of
evidence. On top of that, the danger of the biographical fallacy has
largely frightened scholars off from biography in Propertius; because elegy
places the first-person front-and-center, though, the willingness to pursue
it matters. K. begins with the ostensibly biographical portions of 1.22 and
4.1, connecting the poet to the civil war, Assisi and an elite aristocratic
family. Next she maps Propertius’ interconnections with the Aelii Galli
and with Maecenas’ poetic circle, and discusses his place in the
“canon” of elegists and ancient criticism. Finally, K. tentatively
links Propertius to physical remains in Assisi, namely the domus Musae.
Throughout, K. shows the reader the evidence from which she builds her
narrative, whether textual, inscriptional or archaeological, and is careful
to hedge her claims, when they are tenuous, with “maybe” or
”perhaps.” This is exactly what those beginning to think about the
lives of ancient authors need to see.

Chapter 2 discusses Roman rhetorical education and its lasting influence on
Propertius. Devoting an entire chapter to rhetoric, usually considered
Ovid’s playground, is unexpected. But the role rhetoric plays throughout
Latin poetry is generally understated, and the emphasis here is
appreciated. (K.’s own interest in rhetoric’s connection with poetry no
doubt played a part in the inclusion of this topic.) [[2]] The discussion
is not without problems, though. Since Propertius says relatively little
about his rhetorical education, K. has to swap in Ovid, whose rhetorical
training is better attested. This unfortunately contributes to the
scholarly assimilation of Propertius to Ovid, which occurs too frequently.
Once K. has argued for the fundamental nature of rhetoric in ancient
education, she proceeds with a catalogue of rhetorical tropes, all
illustrated from the Propertian corpus: maxims, mythological and historical
narration, refutation and confirmation, praise and blame, comparison,
ethopoeia/prosopopoeia, thesis and, finally, suasoria and controuersia. A
brief section on Propertius’ use of legal language and his use of
rhetorical topoi follows. The illustrations are helpful and sometimes very
clever; for example, reading 2.7 as a rhetorical exercise denouncing a law,
or reading Horus’ interruption in 4.1 as a suasoria. But sometimes the
evidence is pressed too far: a mere apostrophe, for example, is not
necessarily a rhetorical flourish, and the chart which reveals that
Propertius uses arbiter, arbitrium and reus (among other terms) once apiece
is not a great argument for his employment of legal language. In the end,
K. seems to be arguing that Propertius was immersed in the rhetorical
culture—but no one, I think, would argue against her.

The longest chapter is entitled “Callimachus Romanus.” The potential of
forty-plus pages of Propertius’ worn out and tired Callimacheanism is not
an enticing prospect, but K. avoids the trap and broadens out to cover the
several literary influences on Propertius. Catullus, Gallus, Horace,
Tibullus, Callimachus, Philitas and an assortment of Hellenistic Greek
poets and neoterics all figure here. Importantly, K. gives Philitas as much
emphasis as Callimachus—rare to find, but altogether appropriate
considering the equal weight Propertius gives the pair. K. gives credit
where credit is due, which means that some of what others lazily call
Callimacheanism is properly attributed to Catullus. K. shows how Propertius
reclaims Horace’s public lyric for his own elegiac ends, and how, in
response to the impact of Tibullus 1, he begins to flirt with
pastoral-themed elegies. Overall, K.’s Propertius becomes more and more
playful generically, engaging first with his elegiac predecessors Catullus
and Gallus, then with his contemporaries Tibullus and Horace, and most
extensively with Callimachus and Philitas.

Next comes a pair of chapters dealing with Cynthia. Chapter 4 begins with
the question of identification. K. advocates a combination of philological,
historical and literary-critical methods. First she offers a pellucid
exhibition of the process by which Cynthia has come to be seen as a
pseudonym for Hostia (p. 88), then Cynthia/Hostia’s connections with
Tivoli and possible literary pedigree. Sliding into the territory of the
literary critic, K. highlights the way Propertius begins to blur the line
between Cynthia the woman and Cynthia the poetic product. As an exploration
of this blurring, K. spends the remainder of the chapter mapping out
Propertius’ problem with Cynthia’s infidelity, reading this as a
progressive working-out of the “tension between his mistress’ erotic
and literary circulation” (p. 108). The more popular the poetry, after
all, the more popular the girl, and Cynthia has found her way into many
men’s hands. The next chapter picks up this thread, discussing
Propertius’ place (and Cynthia’s) in the “homosocial” world of
Rome. Catullus 50 serves as the paradigm. Cynthia—both woman and
book—is the token by which Propertius negotiates his status among the
social elite and in terms of male-centered authority. In particular, K.
outlines a contest in Book 1 between Propertius and his poetic predecessor
Gallus that works out literary rivalry through the metaphor of erotic
rivalry. Poems addressed to Tullus, Lynceus (here identified with the
fellow-poet Varius) and Maecenas document Propertius’ rise in this social
network and his increasing engagement with the public/political world,
leading up to Book 4. It is unfortunate that K. closes this provocative
diptych of chapters with the sentence “The elegist has finally come of
age” (p. 137). This treats Propertius’ move from the pursuit of love
and elegy to the socially-elevated homosocial public network as a
teleological fulfillment of purpose. Although this sort of teleological or
developmental reading of Propertius’ elegies is alluring (and common), I
am not convinced that an engagement with public or political topics is in
itself the mark of a “mature” poet—especially when that poet writes
love elegy.

The specter of Augustus and Propertian politics proper is postponed until
the final chapter; but even here K. forestalls tangled pro- or
anti-Augustan arguments by offering her own tertium quid. The elegist’s
otium, she argues, is a benefit bestowed by the workings of empire. She
tracks the luxury products used by Propertius, whether physical products
such as wine, paintings and gemstones, or literary products such as
mythological learning and Greek literary tradition. Propertius, indulging
in the leisure and wealth of empire, broadcasts this virtue, as it were,
through his poetry to the furthest reaches of the empire. Poems perform
imperial duties: 3.11 subjugates Egypt linguistically by appropriating the
exotic into Roman poetic language; 3.22 recalls Tullus to renewed favor at
Rome; 2.31 aestheticizes Roman conquest. Rather than seeing Propertius and
his elegy as counter-cultural, K. emphasizes that “Propertian elegy is
itself both the product of Roman imperialism and productive of it” (p.
141).

The greatest virtue of this book, perhaps, is that no reader will escape
without a great deal of exposure to Propertius himself. Nearly every page
features some bit of quotation. Almost every poem of Propertius receives
discussion. The endnotes and bibliography reveal the breadth and
interconnectedness of modern Propertian scholarship. K. covers the biggest
issues in Propertian studies, and opens up just enough new paths to
encourage readers to branch out. In the end, K.’s book has the potential
to seduce new readers to undertake serious study of a poet with a
reputation for being erratic and difficult.

RANDALL CHILDREE
Union College

[[1]] The book clearly attempts some hand-holding; e.g. p. 74, where K.
spends a paragraph summarizing Callimachus’ Aetia prologue. But cf. p.
53, where she mentions without explanation “imperfect” verbs,
“anaphora,” “vocalic glide -i-,” “fourth conjugation,”
“syncopated perfects” and “epanalepsis.”

[[2]] Cf. K.’s “Slender Verse: Roman Elegy and Ancient Rhetorical
Theory,” Mnemosyne 52 (1999) 41–62.



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