Embedded poems in ancient prose letters

What is more pleasing than the intermingling of verses? (Symmachus Ep. 1.2.1): With these words Avianius, the father of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (ca. 342-403 AD) enthusiastically reacts to a letter from his son into which two epigrams were embedded (Symm. Ep. 1.1). Avianius own letter is also enriched with a series of poems. Apart from the correspondence of Symmachus we find several other examples in ancient letter-corpora from Pliny the Younger (1st cent. AD) to late antiquity (6th cent. AD) where prose and poems are combined. In most cases the inserted poems are written by the epistlers themselves. A systematic analysis of a phenomenon which we may call the epistolary prosimetrum (i.e. the mixing of prose and metre) has not yet been undertaken, and thus the time is ripe to dedicate a study to this special type of the ancient letter-genre. We do not possess a systematic theory of the prosimetrum from antiquity; the term was coined in medieval times. Letter-writers using the mixed form, however, repeatedly reflect on the reasons why they combined prose and poetry in their texts. The project focuses on those cases where epigrams, elegiac and lyrical poems of various length are embedded into prose letters. It examines how the tradition of small-scale-poetry (in contrast to the big genres of epic and drama) is integrated into an epistolary frame and how this epistolary subgenre develops from Classical to late antiquity. After in the first century AD writers such as Martial and Pliny the Younger had already experimented with this kind of genre-crossing, it became very popular in the 4th and 5th century (Ausonius, Sidonius Apollinaris). The following questions will be asked: In which thematic contexts do letter-writers insert poems into their prose-letters? Which functions do these poetic insertions fulfil within the correspondence? How do the prosaic and the poetic sections reflect on each other? How do these letters relate both to pure verse epistles and to other genres where prose and poetry are mixed? Especially the following contexts, in which ancient letter-writers used to combine prose with poems, will build the core of the investigation: 1. Prose- prefaces to poems and poetry-books, 2. Self-quotation and promotion of poetic skills, 3. Quotation and literary criticism, 4. Poems as media of persuasion, and 5. Poems as a mirror of the act of communication. Most of the embedded poems are part of a larger literary exchange between the letter-writers and their addressees and many of the letters in question contain information about writers who are otherwise unknown to us and whose texts are not transmitted. Thus the analysis will also shed further light on the literary history and cultural interactions of the respective periods.

The project investigated a specific type of ancient epistolography which can be encountered especially in the Latin tradition of the genre: prose letters where shorter poems are embedded, either as quotations from other writers or as products composed by the letter writers themselves. Verse inscriptions, impromptu poems, epigrams and lyric poems of various length belong to the spectrum of these poetic insertions. The project focused on letter collections from the 1st century AD to late antiquity (4th-6th century AD) and studied the development of the "epistolary prosimetrum". It also investigated the function of poetic insertions within the communicative context of the letters, thus examining a specific type of "generic enrichment". The analysis revealed that among the ancient literary genres epistolography stands out through its flexibility regarding both form and content; it can be seen as a kind of "super-genre" which frequently absorbs other genres and functionalizes them within the epistolary communication. As it turned out, epistolography is the ideal means for writers from various periods to demonstrate their literary versatility not only vis-à-vis single addressees but also a larger readership, provided that the letter collections were destined for circulation and publication. Apart from the epistolary genre, the project also provided important insights into the broad spectrum of shorter poems which were composed, read/heard and discussed on various occasions during classical and late antiquity. Prose letters add a narrative or argumentative context to the embedded poems and thus provide invaluable information about the various ways of composing, performing, disseminating, receiving, reading, interpreting and evaluating small-scale-poetry within the respective societies. Pagan senators such as Pliny the Younger (61/62 - ca. 113 AD) and Symmachus (ca. 342 - 402/3 AD) present their poetic compositions as products of their leisure time. The late antique bishop and letter writer Sidonius Apollinaris (ca. 432 - 485 AD), on the other hand, faces the challenge of reconciling poetic activities in the classical tradition with his duties as a cleric. Yet it is striking that Sidonius' letter collection contains the highest number of prose letters with poetic insertions, a phenomenon which seems to be connected with Sidonius' attempts to negotiate between his two identities: a former poet of panegyrics and shorter poems in the classical tradition who later became a bishop and letter writer. Whereas the composition of certain types of shorter poems, especially epitaphs and verse inscriptions for churches, does not pose a problem for a Christian, more playful types of poems need to be justified. The context of private correspondence in letters provides an ideal frame, insofar as the responsibility for the integration of poetry into a prose letter can be shifted to the addressee who (allegedly) had requested the poem.