L’aspect économique de la rhétorique amoureuse dans la comédie nouvelle et l’élégie érotique romaine

L’identification des contraintes financières et sociales qui sont sous-entendues dans la situation des personnages amoureux de la comédie de Ménandre – à partir de ses pièces et fragments subsistants et de ses adaptations en langue latine par Térence – permet d’éclairer la rhétorique de séduction ou de dissuasion employée par les divers personnages types de ce genre littéraire. Or, il existe un parallèle étroit entre ces discours et situations dramatiques et l’élégie érotique qui fleurit quelques siècles plus tard à Rome sous la plume de Tibulle, Properce et Ovide. Certains aspects déroutants de la rhétorique de séduction employée par les élégistes sont élucidés lorsqu’on les comprend dans le contexte dramatique de la comédie nouvelle : notamment, le poète narrateur se positionne dans la situation du jeune protagoniste amoureux de la comédie et la bien-aimée à qui il s’adresse se trouve dans la situation de la courtisane indépendante qui figure dans plusieurs pièces comiques. Cette recherche conclut qu’il existe une tension financière entre l’amant élégiaque et sa maîtresse qui, bien qu’elle soit passée sous silence par les poètes, influence les arguments utilisés par le narrateur à son égard et les propos imaginés ou rapportés de sa bien-aimée en retour.

Il mundus muliebris nelle fonti latine e nei contesti Pompeiani

The subject of the study is the classical Latin concept 'mundus muliebris', usually translated simply as women’s toiletry items. The task of the research is, on one hand, to find a more accurate and comprehensive literary definition for the concept as used in the early Imperial period, and on the other, to examine whether it is possible to find corresponding groupings of material objects among the finds from Pompeian houses destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. The study is based on two different bodies of evidence, literary and material, and consequently uses two independent methods of research. In the philological part of the study, all occurrences of the concept 'mundus muliebris' in classical Latin texts were identified and analysed in their proper literary context, paying special attention to information about the nature of the objects included (name, owner, quantity, value, location in the house). On the basis of this analysis, mirrors were chosen as the key elements of the archaeological research, being ̶ hypothetically ̶ the most probable objects to be found among any extant 'mundus muliebris' contexts in Pompeian houses. In the archaeological part of the study, all mirrors deposited in the Archaeological Storerooms of Pompeii, mostly unpublished, were examined, together with their original find contexts. For more detailed documentation, classification, as well as quantitative and functional analysis, the fifty-nine best preserved household or shop contexts were chosen. Among these contexts, only a few ‘ideal’ groups closely corresponding to the literary definitions were found. However, in most cases a functional artifact pattern of toiletry items could indeed be found grouped together with the mirror. The arrangement of the contexts in the domestic space also revealed a clear pattern. Firstly, the contexts consistently seem to be found in the place of storage, inside locked boxes, not in the place of use. Secondly, they show that for the storage of such objects small closed rooms flanking the main entrance of the house were preferred. Culturally, 'mundus muliebris' can be described as a very complex multi-layered concept intimately interrelated with the female gender, an instrument of its bodily creation and a symbol of its nature. Concretely, it has at its core mirrors and instruments for the care of skin and hair, and includes, in more technical definitions, washing equipment as well. In the Roman domus, lacking specific women’s quarters, this box containing toiletries and other personal objects could be defined as the true, although mobile, private space of the household’s female members.

Aristophanis comoediae undecim, graece et latine : ad fidem optimorum Codicum MSS. emendatae cum nova octo comoediarum interpretatione latina, e notis ad fingulas ineditis Stephani Bergleri, nec non Caroli Andreae Dukeri ad quatuor priores, accedunt deperditarum comoediarum fragmenta a Theod. Cantero et Gul. Coddaeo collecta, earumque indices a Joh. Meursio & Joh. Alb. Fabricio digefti, curante Petro Burmanno Secundo, qui praefationem praefixit

Aristófanes nasceu em Atenas entre 450 e 445 a.C. e morreu por volta de 388 a.C. Considerado o principal representante da comédia antiga, em suas peças predominavam a sátira política e a social. Suas primeiras comédias foram assinadas sob pseudônimo e somente após ‘Os Acarnianos’ (ou ‘Acarnanos’) tornou-se conhecido. Da sua obra apenas onze peças conservaram-se integralmente. Esta coleção, em dois volumes, contém onze peças. O primeiro volume inclui ‘Os Plutos’ (publicada no ano de 388 a.C.), sua ultima comédia; ‘As Nuvens’ (423 a.C.); ‘As Rãs’ (405 a.C.); ‘Os Cavaleiros’ (424 a.C.); ‘Os Acarnianos’ (425 a.C.) e ‘As Vespas’ (422 a.C.). O segundo volume contém ‘Os Pássaros’ (414 a.C.); ‘A Paz’(421a.C.); ‘A Assembleia das mulheres’ (392 a.C.); ‘As Convocadas’ (411 a.C.) e ‘Lisistrata’ (411 a.C.)

Le congrès de Cythère , poème érotique en 5 chants. Traduction libre de l'italien, par C. P******

Titre original : Il congresso di Citera

Chronica Caroli sexti, l. XXXIX, cap. 8 - l. XLIII [chronique latine du religieux de Saint-Denis, 1418-1422].

D'après L. Delisle, ce ms. a appartenu à Antoine Lancelot, inspecteur du collège royal en 1732, qui fit don de ses livres à la Bibliothèque royale en 1733. Lancelot.

Anthologie latine.

Acquis entre 1752 et 1753 du fils de Jean-Baptiste Lantin de Dijon, parent de Claude Saumaise, parmi les mss. de Cl. Saumaise vendus à l'abbé Sallier pour la Bibliothèque du roi pour le prix global de 600 livres; cf. B.n.F., département des Manuscrits, Archives Modernes 492bis, registre des acquisitions du département des Manuscrits 1806-1820, f. 55-59, et Archives Ancien Régime 65, f. 313-314 et 349 "In f°. Codex pmembranaceus quo continentur epigrammata et poematia vetera, eadem pleraque quae edita sunt Lugduni anno 1616 apud Jacobum Chovet. Auctores in hac collectione recensiti sunt (...)"; cf. Delisle, Cab. des mss., I, 362 (éd. du catalogue des mss. de Saumaise) et 426; — ex-libris "Cl. Salmasii" (1)