Da Avieno a Rutilio Namaziano : spettatori e poeti del mondo tardo-antico

Abstract

Through the analysis of some significant aspects of the works of Avienus and Rutilius Namatianus we try to test the categories of thinker, artist and spectator in the final period of the classical world, just before it finally succumbs. In this case the artist is the poet who not only feels heir to a long literary tradition, Greek and Latin, but in this tradition he finds the legitimacy for his work. He is a spectator of both the physical reality, geographical and astronomical, both the historical reality contemporary to him ; the readers of his work are the spectators of the world through the mediation of the poetic language. The writer is also a thinker, but for him it is not important to put forward new solutions, but to remain in the wake of tradition and to state his masters’ thought again.