The Anatomy of Dance Discourse: Literary and Philosophical Approaches to Dance in the Later Graeco-Roman World by Karin Schlapbach

Abstract

174 PHOENIX persuasively advocates both sides of the debate here and in the notes—that Sulpicia was a woman and that Sulpicia was the fiction of a male author. Fulkerson concludes that, while the question cannot be answered based on the existing evidence, “much is gained, and little lost, in treating the poetry of S. as an authentically recovered female voice from antiquity” (53), in accord with her philosophy about the collection as a whole—to accept the collection in the form that has been handed down to us. In Section VII, “Style, Metre, and Syntax” (53–58), Fulkerson lays out the technical similarities and differences between the AT and the works of Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid, drawing attention to the unique style of each group of poems within the AT. The last section, “Manuscript Tradition and Text” (58–59), examines the manuscript tradition of the Corpus Tibullianum, with special attention to the inclusion of the AT. Following the text is commentary on each poem. The notes on the first poem of each group begin with a brief introduction to the group and its “author.” Fulkerson situates each poem and its themes in Augustan elegiac generic practices. She treats individual verses by couplets, reprinting each couplet before annotating words and phrases. Entries include useful cross-references to her introduction, copious comparanda from Greek and Latin poetry, references to ancient and modern sources, and explanation and selective bibliography for the cultural and historical context. Fulkerson’s eloquent and often witty prose makes this commentary a pleasure to read. Her clear explication of the poems and their place in the canon of Roman erotic elegy is a valuable resource both for scholars in the field and for intermediate students just beginning their studies of this genre. Fulkerson’s treatment of the AT has convinced this reviewer to include these poems, regardless of their authorship or dating, in all of her future assessments of Roman erotic elegy. University of Tennessee, Knoxville Jessica Westerhold The Anatomy of Dance Discourse: Literary and Philosophical Approaches to Dance in the Later Graeco-Roman World. By Karin Schlapbach. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 2018. Pp. x, 339. A striking photograph appears on the cover of Karin Schlapbach’s new book on ancient dance. A snapshot of what seems to be a dance rehearsal captures the silhouette of a performer in mid-pose, practicing under the watchful eye of two sitting figures, all surrounded by the industrial architecture of the studio with a harbor visible outside. One of the two attentive spectators is the American dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, seen here in a wheelchair only a few months before he died in 2009. The choice of book cover does not seem to be a random one at all. The Anatomy of Dance Discourse offers an insightful review of ancient literary and philosophical approaches to dance from the fourth century b.c.e. to the fifth century c.e., encompassing traditional Graeco-Roman and Christian ideas of body performance while also providing a narrower focus on the cultural context of the second century c.e. The relevance and timeliness of Schlapbach’s monograph are twofold: it opens up a new dimension for accessing prose and poetry from classical and late antiquity by employing the direct physical and dynamic reality of dance as a tool for reading and imagining, while also highlighting the crucial features of ancient dance practice and experience as straightforward referents to current performance theories in a broader sense. The book, in fact, takes advantage of the growing interest in dance from the past two decades, both BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 175 within and outside classics. The result is a magnificent piece of work, which artfully filters and assimilates the valuable contributions of previous scholarship in order to consolidate a new stage within the field of ancient Greek and Roman dance studies.1 As the book’s title suggests, Schlapbach defies commonly held assumptions about the ephemeral—and therefore elusive—nature of dance by carrying out an incisive examination of the elements of ancient dance discourse, the structural and narrative complexities of dance practice, and the ways that this discourse related to other artistic disciplines...