(Mis)reading the gnat: truth and deception in the pseudo-Virgilian Culex
Accepted version
Peer-reviewed
Repository URI
Repository DOI
Change log
Authors
Kearey, TEZ
Abstract
Recent reassessments of the Culex consider it self-consciously pseudepigraphic, overtly protesting its Virgilian authenticity yet simultaneously flaunting its impersonatory poetics. This paper develops this approach, exploring how the poem showcases themes of truth, falsity and deception through metapoetic gestures, narrative structure, and self-positioning within various literary traditions. In particular, it argues that a reconsideration of the gnat’s katabasis-narrative as an embedded ‘poem within a poem’ provides insight into how the Culex models processes of reading (or rather misreading) within the fiction, and thus how it prompts its own readers to approach it.
Description
Keywords
47 Language, Communication and Culture, 4705 Literary Studies
Journal Title
Ramus
Conference Name
Journal ISSN
0048-671X
2202-932X
2202-932X
Volume Title
47
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Publisher DOI
Sponsorship
AHRC (1493827)
AHRC (1493827)