The Hellenistic Origins of Memory as Trope for Literary Allusion in Latin Poetry

Abstract

Abstract The demonstrated Greek origins of Latin terms of allusion lead one to consider also a possibly Hellenistic background for the common figure of memory as signal of literary reference in Latin poetry. Tracing the models for terms of literary reminiscence in Republican and Augustan poetry to Callimachus and Apollonius in particular, this article demonstrates that memory as trope for literary allusion occurs in Hellenistic poetry, wherein several features and varieties of it anticipate later imitations. Focalized by the narrator as well as by internal characters, the trope of literary remembrance is employed in Hellenistic poetry to effect complex intertextual relations. The article concludes with two examples from Greek and Latin poetry of late antiquity that demonstrate the longevity of the device.