Exile Poetry Research Articles

The Case of Dorin Tudoran. The Poetry of Exile and the Exile of Poetry

This essay traces the evolution of Dorin Tudoran's poetics, the mutations from one volume to another, starting from the hypothesis that the theme of exile is defining for all the poet’s work. I have tried to capture the stages of this exile, its points of departure and expression, Dorin Tudoran's relationship with the political system, and, above all, the causes that generated an inversion in the natural order: Tudoran’s entire work seems to be the product of a biographical event that, from a diachronic point of view, marks only the author's last volume. How poetry prefigured biography in the case of Dorin Tudoran calls for a conceptualization of “exile” beyond its basic meaning, that of crossing (willingly or unwillingly) geographical boundaries.

Mahmoud Darwish’s “Like the Flower of Almond or Beyond”: The Poem of Exile and the Narrative of the Self and Community

This study presents an in-depth analysis of Mahmoud Darwish’s Diwan “Like the Flower of Almond or Beyond” from the perspective of the self-narrative as part of the Palestinian collective identity and its relationship with exile as experienced and narrated by the poet. It becomes clear to the reader that the poet depicts, in this collection of poems, phases from his autobiography and from that of his community. The poet associates his personal narrative of exile with the traumatic Palestinian collective memory of successive tragic transformations generated by all forms of victimization such as exile into diaspora and uprooting from homeland the poet and his fellow countrymen were exposed to. In addition, the poet’s self-narrative reveals, at the same time, his perception of various issues such as death, love, childhood, old age, homeland,language, time, existence, and his view of the other; issues that are closely related to the life of exile that both the poet as an individual and his community lived in. The poet’s self-narrative also portrays, to a large extent, his vision, and the horizons he aspires to reach in this Diwan. Keywords: Mahmoud Darwish, Like the flower of almond or beyond, Modern arabic poetry, Exile poetry, Autobiography.

Exploring the Exile Poetry of Mahmud Darwish: A voice of angst, anger, and alienation

Mahmoud Darwish is one of the most prominent Palestinian poets of the 20th century, known for his powerful and poignant poetry that captures the angst, anger, and alienation of the Palestinian people during the Nakba (the Palestinian exodus). His poetry is marked by a deep sense of loss and exile, as well as a fierce resistance and determination to survive and thrive in the face of adversity. His poetry continues to resonate with readers around the world as an authentic voice of Palestinian identity and resistance. Exile poetry can be a form of protest against injustice and oppression, and is often characterized by themes of nostalgia, longing, and a sense of displacement. Mahmud Darwish's exile poetry is a prime example of this genre, reflecting the experiences of the Palestinian people due to the ongoing conflict in the region. Mahmud Darwish's poetry is known for its evocative themes of exile, displacement, and alienation. He explores the concept of home, the longing for a sense of belonging, and the idea of identity. He also writes about the impact of exile on the Palestinian community, how it has affected their cultural and social identity, and the struggle to maintain a sense of self in a foreign land. Despite the pain and suffering caused by exile, Darwish encourages his readers to never give up hope and to continue fighting for justice and freedom. The paper attempts to explore the theme of exile in the porty of Mahmud Darwish.

OVID'S FASTI IN EXILE

AbstractThis article takes as its starting point the frequency with which Ovid refers to his earlier works in his Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto. Alongside his treatment of the Metamorphoses in the exile poetry, it is suggested that Ovid refers, on a number of occasions, to his Fasti and the progress he is making on it. He does so by using the incipit of his calendar poem, Tempora; this term is sometimes combined with signa (‘stars’), which are also mentioned in the opening couplet of the Fasti. It is proposed that Ovid's attitude toward his Fasti changes over the course of his exile, during which time he is, at various junctures, editing his calendar, and that some of these changes are discernible in the exile poetry; they result in part from his entertaining the possibility of using his Fasti as leverage in securing a mitigation of his punishment. Poems discussed in detail are Tristia 1.1, 1.7, 2.547–52, 5.3; Epistulae ex Ponto 2.1, 4.8.

The Ovidian Sublime. Antiquity and After1

This article makes the case that the sublime plays a more important part in the poetry of Ovid, and its reception, than is generally acknowledged. It surveys Ovid's use of the word sublimis, from the early amatory to the exilic poetry, and argues that it often connotes sublimity as an aesthetic and ideological category. Within the Metamorphoses particular attention is given to the Phaethon episode (whose sublimity is well recognized) and to the storm in the Ceyx and Alcyone episode (which has less often been considered under the heading of the sublime). Ovid's lost Medea may have anticipated the sublimity of Senecan tragedy. In exile Ovid experiences a failed sublimity in the face of the overwhelming power of the 'storm-god' Augustus.

TRIUMPH IN OVID: BETWEEN LITERARY TRADITION AND AUGUSTAN PROPAGANDA

The Roman triumph is treated by the Augustan poets from a literary and political perspective. Ovid in particular gives it original and ambiguous features. The topic is often presented as the prediction of a triumph, a point of view perhaps inherited from Gallus. Propertius innovates from the Gallan original, and Ovid uses Propertius’ treatment for further innovations. In his exile poetry, Ovid makes further substantial changes to the use of the triumph, which raises pointed questions as to the poet's sincerity in his apparent praise of Augustus and Tiberius.

Greek Literature

The influence of Greek poetry on Latin poetry is well known. Why, then, is the reciprocal influence of Latin poetry on Greek not so readily discernible? What does that reveal about Greek–Latin bilingualism and biculturalism? Perhaps not very much. The evidence that Daniel Jolowicz surveys in the densely written 34-page introduction to his 400-page Latin Poetry in the Ancient Greek Novel amply testifies to Greek engagement with Latin language and culture on a larger scale than is usually recognized. That this engagement is more readily discernible in Greek novels than in Greek poetry is no reason to dismiss the evidence that the novels provide. On the contrary, the seven main chapters provide ‘readings of the Greek novels that establish Latin poetry…as an essential frame of reference’ (2). In Chapters 1–3 Chariton engages with the love elegy of Propertius, Ovid and Tibullus, with Ovid's epistolary poetry and the poetry of exile, and with the Aeneid. In Chapters 4–5 Achilles Tatius engages with Latin elegy and (again) the Aeneid, and also with the ‘destruction of bodies’ (221) in Ovid, Lucan, and Seneca. In Chapter 7 Longus engages with Virgil's Eclogues and the Aeneid. The strength of the evidence requires only a brief conclusion. Jolowicz's rigorously argued and methodologically convincing monograph deserves to be read widely, and with close attention.

Зима в Томах и «зима» в Аду: еще раз о перекличках между Данте и Овидием

Among the probable sources of “winter” imagery in the last cantos of Inferno a special place belongs to the motif of Scythian winter, developed in detail by Ovid in his “exile poetry” and (before him) by Virgil in the Georgics (III). Despite the absence of direct mentions of Tristia and Epistulae Ex Ponto in Dante’s oeuvre, the majority of modern scholars challenge the statement of E. Moore, who suggested in the late 19th century that later writings by Ovid created in exile may have remained unknown to the author of the Divine Comedy. In correlation with the view of Michelangelo Picone, who, beside tracing the characteristics of Ovid’s winter, also saw in Dante’s wintry parts of Hell a reconsideration of the motif of exile (central to Tristia), the author of the article examines the most important parallels, uniting the Commedia’s first cantica with Ovid’s “exile” verses, namely the description of the solidity of ice covering the river or lake; the hero-author walking on the ice and gazing at beings bound in it; the correlation between winter’s dominance and the escalation of hostility in the relations of persons and tribes; the connection of winter’s setting with the motifs of “death-in-the-life” and the loss of spiritual home; a longing for spiritual Absolute under the reign of winter; potential ambiguousness of “winter” motifs.

Yang Lian’s exilic poetry: ghost poetics and self-dramatization

ABSTRACT This dedication was composed by Chinese poet and author Yang Lian and translated by John Minford, then head of the School of Asian Studies at the University of Auckland. It is inscribed upon a stone memorial hewn to resemble the geographical shape of China, dedicated to the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. The memorial stands outside St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church on Alten Road in Auckland, New Zealand. It was chosen by two Chinese poets, Yang Lian and Gu Cheng, who were then organizing demonstrations against the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) declaration of martial law at the time they were attending an international conference on the non-mainstream Chinese poetry at the University of Auckland. They were denied reentry into China, and their works were blacklisted. The two settled down in New Zealand, and in 1993 Gu murdered his wife and committed suicide, while Yang left his base in Auckland and started his second period of exile elsewhere in Europe.

Verba mihi desunt. Elementi di "attrito linguistico" nella costruzione ovidiana della persona exulis

In Tr. 3.14.46, Ovid laments his decrease in Latin knowledge, concluding that he almost unlearned his mother tongue (uerba mihi desunt dedidicique loqui) and in Tr. 5.7b.55-64 he confesses the decline of his language skills caused by disuse. Moreover, he states that he has learned to speak in Getic to the point of having composed a Geticum libellum (Pont. 4.13.17-23). So, in Ovidian exilic poetry we can observe the elegiac representation of 'language attrition', consisting in a gradual decline or loss of language proficiency, in conjunction with long-lasting contact with foreign languages. But the linguistic adeptness emerging in Ibis and generally in the exilic corpus shows no sign of attrition. We can argue that Ovid uses this frame in order to re-elaborate a literary portray of the persona exulis and to intensify the danger of the loss of Latinity in Tomis, and maybe in the cultural life of Augustan Rome.

‘Zion, Memory and Hope of All Ages’: Nina Davis Salaman’s Romantic-Zionist Poetry

Abstract This article analyses the romantic-Zionist poetry of Nina Davis Salaman, contextualising it alongside other fin-de-siècle Zionist poets to argue that she too similarly adopted bibliocentric, prophetic, and diasporic perspectives, particularly themes associated with the medieval Andalusian poetry of Judah Halevi. In doing so, Salaman, much like other Anglo-Jewish women writers, defined her own subjectivity in the context of nostalgic, romanticising religious and nationalistic discourses. However, uniquely, Salaman’s poetry adopts not only the themes of medieval Andalusian verse yearning for Zion-Jerusalem and the land of Israel, but also, as she put it, its diasporic ‘clothing of metre and rhyme’. Indeed, Salaman’s romantic poetry is populated with intertextual links recalling the biblical Prophets and Halevi’s exilic poetry, which offer historical and scriptural substantiation to support contemporaneous Zionist discourses. Songs of Many Days draws equally on her underlying belief that ‘metre and rhyme’, including in her own poetry, are a feature of diasporic existence.

This Ghostly Poetry: History and Memory of Exiled Spanish Republican Poets by Daniel Aguirre-Oteiza

Reviewed by: This Ghostly Poetry: History and Memory of Exiled Spanish Republican Poets by Daniel Aguirre-Oteiza Lori Mele Hawke Aguirre-Oteiza, Daniel. This Ghostly Poetry: History and Memory of Exiled Spanish Republican Poets. U of Toronto P, 2020. Pp. 392. ISBN 978-1-487-50381-9. In his latest book, This Ghostly Poetry: History and Memory of Exiled Spanish Republican Poets, Daniel Aguirre-Oteiza presents an engaging analysis of not only exile and poems written in exile, but also the relationships that exist between exilic writing, literary history, and national culture. Characterizing exilic poems as "acts of textual resistance" to conventional understandings of Spanish literary history, which affect a recuperative attitude toward the cultural productions of exiles, Aguirre-Oteiza proposes reading practices that expose the ways in which exilic poems "resist and disrupt" historical narratives about national culture (3). He identifies a tension between reading practices that focus on "intentional, representational, referential elements" and those that attend to the "border-crossing, non-chronological, plurivocal, and plurilingual patterns" present in exilic poetry. His exploration of that tension through textual analysis supports the author's argument that the conventional formation of the Spanish literary canon is a "reductive framework for elucidating the discursive complexity of exilic poems" (8–9), and demonstrates the advantages of This Ghostly Poetry's approach. In chapter 1, "Introduction: On Forewords and Historical Ghosts," Aguirre-Oteiza presents his argument while situating the book within and explaining its contributions to the field of Spanish literary criticism, establishing the study's theoretical framework, defining the reading strategies the book will employ, and summarizing the chapters that follow. Though he undoubtedly accomplishes these ambitious intentions, the writing is overly complicated at times. This chapter is dense with readings and applications of theoretical and critical works, and lays the foundation for the reading practices that will be demonstrated in the following chapters. Aguirre-Oteiza's investigation of the concept of ghostliness in the poetry of Spanish Republican exiles builds on existing themes of ghosts and the ghostly in exilic writing and its critical studies. These are explored in "Part One: Exiles in Literary History," which encompasses the second and third chapters. In chapter 2, "Re-engaging with Ghosts in the Poetic Machine," the author turns his attention to the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, and the prominence of [End Page 721] poetry during this time. He chooses four poems that are especially representative of that period to examine in chapter 3, "Writing the War, Re-writing the Nation, Embodying the Voice of the People," and continues to leverage hermeneutics and post-structuralist theories to delineate his concept of poetic memory and his characterization of exilic poetry. "Part Two: Exiles in Poetic Memory" houses chapters 4–7 and is a series of case studies that "explore exilic texts as modes of disruption" with regard to national cultural history (11). Aguirre-Oteiza explains that his selection of poets (Juan Ramón Jiménez, Luis Cernuda, Max Aub, and Tomás Segovia) was strategic and twofold: First, their status as canonical writers "makes their exilic poetry amenable to being productively read … as … disruptive" with regard to conventional understandings of literary history (8). Second, these writers all wrote about each other, so there exists a fascinating interconnectedness (a "revealing constellation") among them, and examining each's writing in relation to the others' allows for a unique lens through which to consider their work within the context of Spanish literary history (11). It should be noted that Aguirre-Oteiza states directly that This Ghostly Poetry is a restricted and focused study rather than a survey or anthology of Spanish Republican exilic poetry (17). Though readers may regret that the selection of poets in his case studies was not more diverse—he did not include any women poets, for example—he does provide reasoned justification for his decision to focus on Jiménez, Cernuda, Aub, and Segovia, and on the specific examples of their writing that he has selected. The thoughtful organization of part 2 is one of This Ghostly Poetry's notable brilliances: Aguirre-Oteiza presents the four poets in order of increasing complexity with respect to the dimensions of exile that figure in their...

“Ovid’s Old Age”: Jacek Kaczmarski and the Sung Poetry of Exile

“Ovid’s Old Age” is a sung poem written by the Polish poet and musician Jacek Kaczmarski (1957–2004) which engages with the myth of Ovid’s exile. Kaczmarski’s works were heavily influenced both by classical culture and his experience of political emigration during the communist era. He was famed as an unofficial bard of the opposition movement, but is as yet little known to classical reception scholars. This paper presents Kaczmarski’s creative engagement with Ovid as both a deeply personal reflection on the nature of exile and at the same time a universal commentary on poetry under authoritarian regimes. Our interpretation is based on a thematic analysis of the poem, including landscape, imperialism, displacement, “national” poets in exile, nostalgia, and the force of poetry. We set the reception in its social, political, and biographical context, with reference to several mediating receptions of the Ovidian exile. In Kaczmarski’s poem, the Ovidian voice helps the poet to express the trials of emigration and reveals their effect on his art. It shows how engagements with classical culture may flourish, even while the formal discipline of Classics has been undernourished. We provide a bilingual translation of “Ovid’s Old Age” to foster the understanding of migratory experiences in contemporary poetry and enrich international scholarship on the reception of Ovid with a response from communist Poland.

Ovid, Rhetoric, and Freedom of Speech in the Augustan Age

Ovid, Rhetoric, and Freedom of Speech in the Augustan Age Jeffrey M. Hunt The impetus for this volume was a conference on Ovid’s exile poetry held at Baylor University in February of 2019. That conference sprung to life in a conversation between Eleonora Tola and Alden Smith at the Université Blaise Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand in 2017, during a symposium on Ovid sponsored by Hélène Vial. When Smith returned to Texas, he discussed the possibilities with me, and we decided to put some ideas on paper. Having chosen the topic, Smith approached a group of distinguished scholars with the proposal, which received favorable responses. We settled on the title “Ovid, Rhetoric, and Freedom of Speech in the Late Augustan Age: A Symposium on the Poet Ovid and his Milieu”—a truncated version of which serves as this volume’s title. The scholars who presented at the colloquium are among the best in the field. Carole Newlands has made outstanding contributions to Ovidian scholarship: from her studies on the Fasti to her overview of the Ovidian corpus. Her piece in this volume sheds light on Ovid’s poetic engagement with Virgil through the character of Aesacus. Alessandra Romeo’s rich work on Ovid’s Metamorphoses is well known. Her paper here focuses on Ovid’s adaptation of earlier versions of the myth of Cephalus. Eleonora Tola’s 2004 monograph (La métamorphose poétique chez Ovide: Tristes et Pontiques) offers a groundbreaking look at Ovidian intratextuality. In this volume, she investigates Ovid’s use of persuasive speech in Tristia 2. Alden Smith, who has spent most of his career writing on Virgil, wrote his first book on Ovid and has produced a number of articles on our poet, with the majority of them of late focusing on Ovid’s exile poetry. His paper concerns Ovid’s use of allusion and other rhetorical techniques in his letter addressed to Paullus Maximus (ex Ponto 1.2). Hélène Vial’s work on Ovid’s [End Page 133] exile poetry, particularly the Ibis, is widely recognized. Here she addresses the issue of free speech and Ovid’s strategy of leaving those he would reproach unnamed. Laurent Pernot, who gave the conference’s keynote address, is a major figure in ancient rhetorical studies. We are particularly grateful to Professor Pernot for urging us to assemble revised versions of the conference papers for this publication and his assistance in its preparation. His paper considers the role of figured speech as a formative element in Roman education and leads to insights about Ovid’s understanding of rhetoric. Julia Hejduk, whose The God of Rome (2020), treats Jupiter in Augustan literature, has published widely on both Virgil and Ovid. A former president of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Professor Hejduk is acutely aware of our profession’s political and social challenges, which she addresses head-on in her important contribution that considers Donna Zuckerberg’s recent book Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age. Finally, Karl Galinsky’s name has been synonymous with Ovidian studies ever since the publication of his 1975 monograph: Ovid’s Metamorphoses: An Introduction to the Basic Aspects. We are deeply grateful to Professor Galinsky for offering his rich response to the papers that make up this collection. His thoughtful consideration of the variety of ideas presented in this volume includes indispensable observations on how they fit within their early imperial context; his synthesis provides a most fitting conclusion. The conference that inspired this volume could not have happened without the support of many colleagues at Baylor University. I would like to thank Ken Jones, the chair of Classics at Baylor, as well as all of my colleagues in the department for their many contributions to its success. I would like also to express my appreciation to Baylor’s College of Arts and Sciences, as well as the Armstrong Browning Library, which generously accommodated the Ovid conference. I am delighted to have had a small role in presenting here the intellectual fruits of a gathering of such outstanding Ovidian scholars. [End Page 134] Jeffrey M. Hunt Baylor University Copyright © 2020...

Classicism and Christianity in Late Antique Latin Poetry by Philip Hardie

Reviewed by: Classicism and Christianity in Late Antique Latin Poetry by Philip Hardie Dennis Trout Classicism and Christianity in Late Antique Latin Poetry Philip Hardie Berkeley: University of California Press, 2019. Pp. viii + 293. ISBN: 978-0-520-29577-3 Specialists in early imperial literature have discovered the treasures of late Latin poetry. Prominent among them is Philip Hardie, who has already published discerning essays on Prudentius and Paulinus of Nola. Perhaps it is unsurprising that scholars who have labored in the well-tilled fields of Augustan and post-Augustan poetry should migrate to fresher terrain. Hardie himself identifies "the relative youth of studies of late antique Latin poetry" as one of the discipline's defining features (3). That such emigrants to this new frontier should also bring along the tools that have proved so effective in rehabilitating Ovid, Lucan, and Statius is equally unremarkable. Nevertheless, it is an act of loyalty that thrusts them into the center of debates over the exceptionality of late Latin poetics. By championing critical principles honed on the poetry of Vergil and his successors, Classicism and Christianity takes its stand on the side of those who see the writing and reading practices of late Latin poets and their audience as fundamentally continuous with those of the classical past. The first chapter of Classicism and Christianity ("Farewells and Returns: Ausonius and Paulinus of Nola") models Hardie's approach and, as he notes, introduces most of the book's themes and strategies. The poetic epistles exchanged by Ausonius and Paulinus have long been a favorite site for exploring the intersection of biography and literature in the later fourth century. Though less interested in lives than some scholars, Hardie like others spotlights the interplay with Vergil (especially the Eclogues) and Ovid (especially the exile poetry) that undergirds the textual maneuvers and emotional complexity of these letters. For Hardie, the "noise and clatter of classical poets" that animate these letter-poems (21) and the "patchwork of old intertexts" (19) that structures them are clear evidence that even the radically committed Christian poet (Paulinus) was licensed to deploy the "verbal resources and stylistic ornament" (43) of pre-Christian poetry in the service of Christian truth. Consequently, Hardie argues, content constitutes the primary difference between Late Antiquity's Christian and traditional Latin poetry and contrastimitation stands as a privileged technique by which Christian poets bridged content and form (e.g., 2 and 39). This position is not in itself new, of course, but Hardie [End Page 440] further argues that late antique Kontrastimitation is broadly continuous with the "emulative and agonistic practices of pre-Christian poetry" (8). In short, as the readings of this chapter are meant to illustrate, the critical methods developed in recent decades by scholars of early imperial poetry are appropriate and effective for assessing late ancient poetry, Christian and traditional alike. There are, then, two ways of engaging Classicism and Christianity, as an assemblage of close readings and as an interpretative primer. Chapters 2–4 focus on late antique elaborations of themes and narrative ploys already present primarily in the works of Vergil. In these chapters Hardie foregrounds the late antique absorption, modification, and transvaluation of Vergilian narratives and ideologies of imperial renewal and exilic longing; the adaption and occasional subversion of the Aeneid's ruminations on cosmic and imperial order; and late Latin poetry's recapitulations of Vergil's emphasis upon the dialectic of concord and discord in perceptions of Roman history and identity formation. Claudian, Prudentius, Paulinus of Nola, and Rutilius Namatianus claim most of the spotlight but the poets of Biblical epic, centones, and carmina figurata, as well as Augustine, that shrewd reader of Vergil, edge in. Less linear argument than a run of soundings bringing to light the classical formations underlying late Latin poetry's political, religious, and aesthetic surfaces, these chapters also reaffirm the centrality of Vergil to the late antique consciousness. In the following two chapters this literary archaeology is brought to bear on topics that are often heralded (inappropriately in Hardie's view) as quintessentially late antique. Chapter 5, which includes an emblematic discussion of the intertextual tapestry that voices the De ave phoenice's program of...

The Cultural History of Augustan Rome: Texts, Monuments, and Topography ed. by Matthew P. Loar et al.

Reviewed by: The Cultural History of Augustan Rome: Texts, Monuments, and Topography ed. by Matthew P. Loar et al. Nandini B. Pandey Matthew P. Loar, Sarah C. Murray and Stefano Rebeggiani (eds.). The Cultural History of Augustan Rome: Texts, Monuments, and Topography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xiv, 192. $99.99. ISBN 978-1-108-48060-4. Publishers are invited to submit new books to be reviewed to Professor Michael Arnush, 53 Warren Street, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866; email marnush@skidmore.edu. This edited collection, the product of a 2014 conference at Notre Dame's Rome Global Gateway, asks "what the texts in, on, and about the city of Rome tell us about how the ancients thought about, interacted with, and responded to the city during the transition from Republic to Empire" (1). Given the enormity of the topic, this slender volume makes no claim to comprehensive treatment. What it offers, instead, is a high-quality sampling with suggestions for future research (8-9) that will reward anyone interested in responsions between Augustan writing and building. D. S. Levene, in "Monumental Insignificance: The Rhetoric of Roman Topography from Livy's Rome" (chapter 1), identifies conspicuous absences of topographical and monumental detail where we might most expect them in Livy. Levene suggests that the history is "more concerned with giving an impression of a real environment than evoking the actual city of Rome" (20), supplanting the urban environment as a repository of exempla legible to audiences abroad. In "Cicero, quid in alieno saeculo tibi? The 'Republican' Rostra between Caesar and Augustus" (chapter 2), Thomas Biggs compellingly tracks the process by which the Rostra was reimagined as a "pluperfect" "meta-monument" to the lost Republic, thanks to late-Republican physical and performative interventions including the mise-en-scène of Cicero's corpse on a structure bearing Antony's name and Caesar's memory (36). Peter Heslin, in "The Julian Calendar and the Solar Meridian of Augustus: Making Rome Run on Time" (chapter 3), expertly corrects the belief that the obelisk in the Campus Martius was "preordained" to serve as a gnomon within a unified spatial plan "by an all-seeing Augustus" (71). The meridian is better understood as an "afterthought" among ad hoc continuations of Julius Caesar's calendrical reforms, a pharaonic counterpoint to the senatorial Ara Pacis whose conscription into later emperors' building plans has enhanced confusion about the pavement date. Dan-el Padilla Peralta's "Monument Men: Buildings, Inscriptions, and Lexicographers in the Creation of Augustan Rome" (chapter 4) examines the relationship between Augustus' architectural renovation of Rome and the contemporaneous boom in orthography, lexicography, and epigraphy, with special interest in questions of access, antiquarianism, and "how documenting the monument came to involve monumenting the document" (82) within this text-rich environment. In the archaeological first half of chapter 5, "The Porticus Liviae in Ovid's Fasti (6.637-648)," Maddalena Bassani interprets the Porticus Liviae and its shrine to Concordia as a public reclamation of the lavish domus left to Augustus [End Page 357] by Vedius Pollio.1 On the literary side, Francesca Romana Berno analyzes Ovid's response in Fasti 6 as a failed attempt to square criticism of contemporary luxury with praise of "the magnificence of Livia's monuments as testaments to moral sobriety" (116). The Greek ekphrastic epigrams on Myron's Cow have struck many—notably Michael Squire2—as meditations on mimesis itself, not particularly engaged with the statue's spatial context after its likely relocation to Rome among the armenta Myronis that Propertius 2.31 places on the Palatine. In "Greek Poets on the Palatine: A Wild Cow Chase?" (chapter 6), Carolyn MacDonald reads several epigrams against this Augustan landscape as glimpses into an elusive "Greek discourse on the uses and abuses of Greek art in the Caesars' city of marble" (127). Building from the familiar observation that exile splits Ovid into a body that must remain in Tomis and books that may return to Rome, Stephanie Ann Frampton's "Ovid's Two-Body Problem" (chapter 7) analyzes epigraphical intermediality in the exile poetry as part of Ovid's bid to render himself more permanent in the city, notably via Tristia 4...

“Où est le centre du monde?” Marie Darrieussecq’s Tristes Pontiques: Movable Centers and Migrations of Being

In the introduction to her Tristes Pontiques, Marie Darrieussecq asks: “Where is the center of the world?” Her translations of Ovid’s poetry of exile engage with narratives of center and margin, migration and exclusion. Banished from Rome to Tomis by Augustus, Ovid writes his creative survival into epistolary elegies: a portable form that invites dispersal. For over 2000 years, successive translations have continued this momentum, both decentralizing and regenerative, a form of literary rewilding that resists the extinctions built into necropolitical systems. The materiality of the modes of transmission – from papyrus to laptop – is also part of what Donna Haraway calls “otherworldly conversations.”

Chinese avant-garde poetry in times of mind, mayhem and money through the interpretation of Maghiel van Crevel

The article is written in the form of a book review. It tells about the Chinese avant-garde poetry as a tendency in the literature of the turn of the 20th and the 21st centuries. We are acquainted with the contemporary poetry through the eyes of Maghiel van Crevel, who, being a famous professor-sinologist, describes the lyrical vanguard with all its peculiarities. In his book he shows the real background of the exile poetry. The reader can not only see the positive sides of the modern poetry, but can also understand the controversial nature of the “Misty poetry” in its entirety. The article gives a brief history of contemporary poetry. It covers the period of forbidden underground poetry during the times of cultural revolution, and shows all the transformation stages of the Chinese avant-garde in literature. In the article we can trace the attitude of Maghiel van Crevel towards the Western art influence on the Chinese culture and poetry. He skillfully expresses his thoughts and feelings by using the words of the others and citing the leading Chinese literary critics.
 The most interesting thing is that the author of the book focuses his attention on the poets who do not belong to the key representatives of the poetic avant-garde. This helps the reader to understand that a poet is an ordinary person and can write in a simple manner using the colloquial speech just to be closer to other people.
 The key aim and goals of the Article is to become a vivid literary guide to the avant-garde poetry environment and to give some clues to the reasons of the poetry in exile.

The Lost Acadians and the Louisiana Homeland: 19th-Century American Poetry and Prose Portrayals of Exile

The Evangeline story, as made famous by Longfellow, is one of two star-crossed lovers who are separated at the moment of the Acadian Expulsion. The engagement of "fairest of all maids," Evangeline, and "noblest of all youths," Gabriel, becomes the central focus of Longfellow's pastoral description of pre-expulsion Grand Pré, Novia Scotia. This myth is the predominant one that is eventually perpetuated regarding the Acadian expulsion into the Southern States.

Metamorphosis: Poems inspired by Titian: reversals and reflections

The focus of this article is an exhibition held at the National Gallery in London, Metamorphosis: Titian, 2012, and a companion volume of poems by fourteen leading contemporary poets, Metamorphosis: Poems Inspired by Titian (2012). The exhibition was based on just two myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, both memorably depicted by Titian, the tales of Actaeon and Callisto. This article analyses the many parallels between the intratextual dynamics of the Metamorphoses and the internal energies of the multi-arts exhibition, in particular the permeation of the boundary between the textual/visual world and our own reality. Many of the modern exhibitors share Ovid’s sympathetic identification with Actaeon, made explicit in his exile poetry, and use the myth as a way of exploring male sexual vulnerability. Some draw intriguing parallels between Titian and Diana, who both, in their different ways, shape reality. The complex links and disjunctures between the exhibits further mirror the ambiguous and shifting relationships between the dramatis personae of the two myths at the heart of this exhibition.