Space and Intertextuality in Hexameters

Abstract

The two types of narrative hexameter poetry — on Greek myth and Roman history — stand at a different distance from Greek poetry; and even within the type on Greek myth there are different distances from Greek models. The various subjects of didactic poetry, intrinsically general, are localized to different degrees, and involve different degrees of proximity to Greek poetic models; Greek prose is also important. Pastoral uses names to bring a Greek world into different places. Placing and proximity to Greek are connected but Calpurnius makes considerable use of non-bucolic Theocritus. Satire is less separate from the lower kinds of Greek hexameter poetry than might appear. Theocritus is again important, as is the Italian country. Occasional poetry is connected with Greek occasional hexameters, but has a different spatial focus. Greek and Latin inscriptional poetry come together particularly at Rome.