En versus facio: Rewriting Augustan Elegy in Latin Epitaphs, Maximianus, and Louise Labé

Abstract

This dissertation examines the reception of Augustan elegy using three case studies: verse epitaphs from imperial Rome, Maximianus’s late antique Elegies, and sixteenth-century French author Louise Labé’s à légies. Through close readings of my case studies and broader interpretations situating the works in their historical contexts, I show how each author uses elegy’s erotic framework to consider larger issues of their own changing times. In each case, I show that the authors of these receptions adapt the language of Augustan elegy to their own concerns by changing the identity of the lover-poet. In the epitaphs, these changes range from a poem in the voice of the wealthy rival to one whose narrator is a dog and allow the authors a venue for literary competition and contemplations of status under the Empire. In the case of Maximianus, an elderly lover-poet allows the author to explore anxieties about cultural degeneration in the western Roman Empire, as well as to reckon with changing ideals of masculinity in Late Antiquity. Louise Labé’s female speaker allows her to examine women’s desire, and to take part in early modern France’s proto-feminist movement by calling on women to pursue an education in reading and writing.