New Approaches to Sidonius Apollinaris

Book excerpt: Sidonius Apollinaris is a central figure in the literature and history of fifth-century Gaul. But he still awaits sustained debate in modem scholarship. This integrated and international collection of essays explores the potential for a complete commentary on his works, starting with a retrospective on Sidonius scholarship up to the present, and then focusing in turn on his verse and his prose. The strangeness of his poetry triggers a critical contemporary assessment and a proposal for better understanding through the theory of Cultural Memory; there follow case studies of the panegyrics and of poems within the letters, and examinations of his intertextuality with Horace and Claudian. Research into Sidonius' prose is represented by two contrasting essays on the composition of the letter collection, by a demonstration of how Sidonius constructs history to create contemporary identity, and by a groundbreaking chapter applying text linguistics to the letters. An appendix fills a significant scholarly lacuna with Helga Kohler's indices to her commentary on Letters, Book 1 (Heidelberg, 1995). The present volume will be important for both literary and historical scholars of the late Roman world, for both Classicists and Medievalists. Book jacket.