Abstract
That the recusatio constitutes a poetic strategy that at once challenges and yet tends to affirm the traditional hierarchy of genres is by now a familiar, if variously formulated, observation.1 Hence a multitude of meanings in any specimen of recusatio, and the promise of internal paradox, a constellation of possibilities that holds an irresistible attraction for the modern critic, for whom genre remains a central concern and to whom (and without apology) complications and problems offer very appealing aspects of literary expression. Although in important respects it differs from other Augustan instances of its kind, Propertius 2.10 is unquestionably a recusatio.2 The prospect of Propertius’ turning from elegiac poetry to the composition of Augustan epic is configured in terms of what Oliver Lyne describes as “the motif of (failed) ascent,” which here refers to the poet’s failed metaphorical ascent of Mt. Helicon.3 The poem begins with the declaration (1)
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