The Hellenistic Origins of Memory as Trope for Literary Allusion in Latin Poetry

Abstract

The demonstrated Greek origins of Latin terms of allusion lead one to consider also a possibly Hellenistic background for the common figure of memory as signal of literary reference in Latin poetry. Tracing the models for terms of literary reminiscence in Republican and Augustan poetry to Callimachus and Apollonius in particular, this article demonstrates that memory as trope for literary allusion occurs in Hellenistic poetry, wherein several features and varieties of it anticipate later imitations. Focalized by the narrator as well as by internal characters, the trope of literary remembrance is employed in Hellenistic poetry to effect complex intertextual relations. The article concludes with two examples from Greek and Latin poetry of late antiquity that demonstrate the longevity of the device.

NICANDER'SHYMN TO ATTALUS: PERGAMENE PANEGYRIC

“…53I wonder whether ἄμνηστον in the same Nicandrean line could also be read metapoetically as a marker of intertextual memory, encouraging the reader not to leave this Callimachean intertext unrecalled (for this indexical function of memory cf. Faber (2017)). Notably, this rare word only occurs earlier at Lyc.…”