What’s Next for Late Antique Literary Studies or Why Read Ausonius’s Nugae?

Brian Sowers (Brooklyn College)

Throughout his literary corpus, Ausonius frequently insists that he writes light, nugatory works that learned friends–those recipients of his nugae–should dismiss, dismantle, or deride rather than seriously engage. Nineteenth- and Twentieth-century scholars, influenced in large part by classical aesthetics, responded to Ausonius’s writings as he prescribed. This past quarter century, however, has seen a remarkable shift in scholarly interests, including late antique and so-called non-canonical authors (e.g. Hartman and Kaufmann 2023, Verhelst and Scheijnen 2022). While some readers still insist that Ausonius is boorish and pedantic, others still view him as a type of avant-garde pioneer of late antique literary habits or values, one that, perhaps, anticipates post-modernity (Nugent 1990, Pelttari 2014, Formisano 2017).  Building on the foundation of these more contemporary and generous readers, this paper traces Ausonius’s three core literary values: generic experimentation, encyclopedism, and epitomization. For the sake of brevity and clarity, this paper will focus on Ausonius’s Cento Nuptialis–its paratextual introduction, its method of composition, and its general structure/organization–because the cento typifies Ausonius’s tripartite core values. Cross references will be made to parallels found throughout Ausonius’s corpus, including his Griphus, Moselle, Parentalia, Professores, and Technopaiegnion. When situated alongside his distinctive intertextual self-deprecations, Ausonius’s generic experimentation, encyclopedism, and epitomization shine light on late antique literature as a whole and also on the future of late antique scholarship.

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Hartman, J. and H. Kaufmann, eds. 2023. A Late Antique Poetics?: The Jeweled Style Revisited, New York: Bloomsbury

Nugent, S. G. 1990. “Ausonius’ ‘Late-Antique’ Poetics and ‘Post-Modern’ Literary Theory,” Ramus 19:26–50

Pelttari, A. 2014. The Space that Remains: Reading Latin Poetry in Late Antiquity. Ithaca: Cornell University Press

Verhelst, B. and T. Scheijnen, eds. 2022. Greek and Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity: Form, Tradition, and Context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press