Scientific Abstract

Movement and Rest: The Kinetic Body in the Making of Roman Poetry from Catullus to Ovid

Summary

This project examines the role of the body and of bodily practices and states (habitūs) in the making of Roman poetry, and it does so through the lens of movement and rest. The constantly moving bodies of the goddesses of Fate as they sing (Catullus 64), the sleepless poet tossing and turning in his bed before composing a poem (Catullus 50), the poet as a pantomime or an acrobat (Horace, Epistles 2.1; 2.2), or the poem itself as modeled on a woman in motion (Propertius 2.1) – these iconic figures and motifs of Roman poetry will for the first time be investigated comprehensively and in detail: how are we to understand this emphasis on physical movement in a culture that has long since made the transition to writing? Why is the motif of the kinetic body, which is shaped by performance practices of a distant or imagined past, so prevalent in Roman poetry from Catullus to Ovid? What does it tell us about the nature of that poetry? What does it disclose about Roman views on the “movements of the soul” (generally understood as emotions) and their physical underpinnings? While the tension between performative modes of composition and the written text has been studied extensively in Greek culture, whose tradition of oral poetry has been a major point of interest in the field of Classics for at least a century, in Roman literature physical aspects have been studied primarily in relation to delivery. Accordingly, the focus has been mostly on drama and rhetoric, i.e., genres that are performed in particular settings (the theatrical stage, the court).

This project proposes a new angle by focusing not on delivery but on the kinetic body as a factor in the production of song and verse, as it is imagined in Roman poetry itself. By putting physical movement at the centre of the enquiry, the project will complement existing research that examines the relationship between the voice and written verse, especially in bucolic, lyric, elegiac, satiric, and epigrammatic poetry. The time span studied extends from the last decades of the Republic to the first ones of the Principate (or from Catullus to Ovid), a period of great tension between Greek and especially Alexandrian influences on Roman literature and a nostalgia for an idealized Roman past; a period, accordingly, of heightened self-reflection in poetry. Close readings and an in-depth scrutiny of the Latin vocabulary of movement and rest with the aid of existing databases will reveal how and to what extent bodily states, postures, and attitudes, as well as motor activities such as walking, gesticulating, or dancing are presented as informing processes of poetic composition in thought, voice, and writing. The study extends to metaphorical references to these bodily states and practices, and it will be complemented by an enquiry into the movements of the soul (animi motūs).

The project will yield a better under­stand­ing of the role of the kinetic body in the binary of voice and writing that dominates much existing scho­larship. Moreover, it will add a historical and literary perspective to current research in media studies, sociology, neurobiology, and cultural anthropology that investigates how physical movement contributes to human com­munication, a question that will become ever more pressing with the rapid advance of artificial intelligence.