Rhyme in classical Latin poetry: Stylistic or stochastic?

Nagy, Ben

doi:10.1093/llc/fqab105

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…In this section I shift from well-established methods in computational stylometry to newer techniques that examine non-lexical features that are indigenous to poetry. This combines and extends research that I began on hexameter metre (Nagy, 2021) as well as work on the stylistic signal contained in deliberate sonic correspondence (Nagy, 2022b). Thus, while the results are emphatic and the techniques appear powerful, it should be made clear that this is an area of emerging research.…”

Section: Results: Poetic Analysissupporting

confidence: 59%

“…The poetic analysis ( §6) examined technical minutiae of prosody and metre that are standard considerations in classical philology; the innovation lies in their automatic extraction and their treatment with modern multivariate analysis and statistics. The consideration of some stylistic features related to rhyme is perhaps controversial, but my recent research (Nagy, 2022b) has established that there is authorial signal in this domain. The poetic models performed very strongly, particularly in terms of differentiating authors, and it is in this domain that the separation between the Single and Double letters is most obvious.…”

Section: Searching For a Temporal Signalmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Some Stylometric Remarks on Ovid's Heroides and the Epistula Sapphus

Nagy¹

2022

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This article aims to contribute to two well-worn areas of debate in classical Latin philology, relating to Ovid's Heroides. The first is the question of the authenticity (and, to a lesser extent the correct position) of the letter placed fifteenth by almost every editor-the so-called Epistula Sapphus (henceforth ES). The secondary question, although perhaps now less fervently debated, is the authenticity of the 'Double Heroides', placed by those who accept them as letters 16-21. I employ a variety of methods drawn from the domain of computational stylometry to consider the poetics and the lexico-grammatical features of these elegiac poems in the broader context of a corpus of 'shorter' (from 20 to 546 lines) elegiac works from five authors (266 poems in all) comprising more or less all of the non-fragmentary classical corpus. Based on a variety of techniques, every measure gives clear indication that the poetic style of the Heroides is Ovidian, but distinctive; they can be accurately isolated from Ovid more broadly. The Single and Double Heroides split into two clear groups, with the ES grouped consistently with the single letters. Furthermore, by comparing the style of the letters with the 'early' (although there are complications in this label) works of the Amores and the late works of the Ex Ponto, the evidence supports sequential composition-meaning that the ES is correctly placed-and, further, supports the growing consensus that the double letters were composed significantly later, in exile. 1

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Section: Results: Poetic Analysissupporting

confidence: 59%

Section: Searching For a Temporal Signalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Some Stylometric Remarks on Ovid's Heroides and the Epistula Sapphus

Nagy¹

2022

Preprint

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Internal Rhyme in Latin Lyric: Statius Silvae 4.5 and 4.7

Hardy

2024

Classical Philology

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Some stylometric remarks on Ovid’sHeroidesand theEpistula Sapphus

Nagy

2023

Digital Scholarship in the Humanities

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This article contributes to two well-worn areas of debate in classical Latin philology, relating to Ovid’s Heroides. The first is the question of the authenticity (and, to a lesser extent the correct position) of the letter placed 15th in almost every collection—the so-called Epistula Sapphus (henceforth ES). The secondary question, although perhaps now less fervently debated, is the authenticity of the ‘Double Heroides’, placed by those who accept them as letters 16–21. I employ a variety of methods drawn from the domain of computational stylometry to consider the poetics and the lexico-grammatical features of these elegiac poems in the broader context of a corpus of ‘shorter’ (from 20 to 546 lines) elegiac works from five authors (266 poems in all) representing most of classical elegy. Based on a variety of techniques, every measure gives clear indication that the poetic style of the Heroides is genuinely Ovidian, but distinctive; they can be accurately isolated from Ovid more broadly. The Single and Double Heroides split into two clear groups, with the ES grouped consistently with the single letters. Furthermore, by comparing the style of the letters with the ‘early’ (although there are complications in this label) works of the Amores and the late works of the Ex Ponto, the evidence supports sequential composition—meaning that the ES is correctly placed—and, further, supports the growing consensus that the double letters were composed significantly later, in exile.

show abstract

Rhyme in classical Latin poetry: Stylistic or stochastic?

Cited by 3 publications

References 12 publications

Some Stylometric Remarks on Ovid's Heroides and the Epistula Sapphus

Some Stylometric Remarks on Ovid's Heroides and the Epistula Sapphus

Internal Rhyme in Latin Lyric: Statius Silvae 4.5 and 4.7

Some stylometric remarks on Ovid’sHeroidesand theEpistula Sapphus

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