(Mis)reading the gnat: truth and deception in the pseudo-Virgilian Culex
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Authors
Publication Date
2018-12Journal Title
Ramus
ISSN
0048-671X
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Volume
47
Issue
2
Pages
174-196
Language
English
Type
Article
This Version
AM
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Kearey, T. (2018). (Mis)reading the gnat: truth and deception in the pseudo-Virgilian Culex. Ramus, 47 (2), 174-196. https://doi.org/10.1017/rmu.2018.13
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.
Sponsorship
AHRC (1493827)
Funder references
AHRC (1493827)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/rmu.2018.13
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/267093
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