Epigrams and Verse Letters in Palladas and Gregory of Nazianzos

Abstract

The boundaries of literary genres in the ancient world were both fixed and fluid. In the hands of a talented writer, this fluidity offered the possibility of subtle, hybrid literary forms. This essay considers the use of poems as letters in the work of Palladas and Gregory of Nazianzos, who both played a major role in the revival of poetry in the fourth century AD. Among the epigrams of Palladas and Gregory, there are some that (to a degree cryptically) share features with the letter as a form of communication. Gregory also wrote seven verse epistles, which stand out for their originality in Greek literature, as verse letters are only previously found in Latin literature. Why did Gregory choose to write poems rather than prose letters on these occasions? How are these poems related to his prose letters to the same people or to those written in similar circumstances?