Fictions in the Real World: Language and Reality in Cicero’s Letters
-
Ruth Morello
Abstract
This paper explores the contributions of imagery, temporal ambiguity, and intertextuality in creating fictionalising colour in Cicero’s Ad Familiares. An opening study of ‘epistolary’ fictionality in Ovid’s Tristia 4.2 lays groundwork for subsequent discussions of fictionalising scenarios in Cicero’s Ad Fam. 7.1 and Ad Fam. 9.2, of Caelius’s theatrical imagery in his persona as Cicero’s political ‘futurologist’ in Book 8, and finally of the ancient editor’s use of thematic sequences that extend across whole books to amplify the fictionalising qualities of individual letters. The outcome of the creative manipulations of perceived reality in Cicero’s letters is an ambiguous, potentially fictionalising (but not necessarily fictional) space for epistolographical communication. In that space, life itself is represented as a staged performance, in which the most ‘fictional’ material paradoxically expresses the ‘real’ world of the writer himself.
Abstract
This paper explores the contributions of imagery, temporal ambiguity, and intertextuality in creating fictionalising colour in Cicero’s Ad Familiares. An opening study of ‘epistolary’ fictionality in Ovid’s Tristia 4.2 lays groundwork for subsequent discussions of fictionalising scenarios in Cicero’s Ad Fam. 7.1 and Ad Fam. 9.2, of Caelius’s theatrical imagery in his persona as Cicero’s political ‘futurologist’ in Book 8, and finally of the ancient editor’s use of thematic sequences that extend across whole books to amplify the fictionalising qualities of individual letters. The outcome of the creative manipulations of perceived reality in Cicero’s letters is an ambiguous, potentially fictionalising (but not necessarily fictional) space for epistolographical communication. In that space, life itself is represented as a staged performance, in which the most ‘fictional’ material paradoxically expresses the ‘real’ world of the writer himself.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgments V
- Contents VII
- Introduction: Fictions of Genre 1
-
Part I: (Auto)Biographical Fictions
- Fact and Fiction in Pliny’s Epistles: The Augustan Poetry Book and its Legacies 21
- Fiction and Authenticity in the Letters of Euripides 45
- Greetings from the Margin: Ovid’s Epistulae ex Ponto 69
-
Part II: Editorial Fictions
- Just Some Notes for My Own Use: Arrian’s (‘Arrian’s’?) Letter to Lucius Gellius 89
- Cicero’s Epistulae ad Familiares: From Authentic Letters to Literary Artefact 107
-
Part III: Pseudepigraphic Fictions
- The Latin Letters of Pseudo-Brutus (Cic. Brut. 1.16 and 1.17) 131
- Fictionality and Pseudepigraphy in the Apocryphal Letter Exchange between Seneca and Paul 161
-
Part IV: Ekphrastic Fictions
- Fictions in the Real World: Language and Reality in Cicero’s Letters 181
- Let’s Get Real: Ekphrasis, Reality and Fiction in Pliny’s Epistles 207
- List of Contributors 239
- Bibliography 241
- General Index 259
- Index Locorum 263
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgments V
- Contents VII
- Introduction: Fictions of Genre 1
-
Part I: (Auto)Biographical Fictions
- Fact and Fiction in Pliny’s Epistles: The Augustan Poetry Book and its Legacies 21
- Fiction and Authenticity in the Letters of Euripides 45
- Greetings from the Margin: Ovid’s Epistulae ex Ponto 69
-
Part II: Editorial Fictions
- Just Some Notes for My Own Use: Arrian’s (‘Arrian’s’?) Letter to Lucius Gellius 89
- Cicero’s Epistulae ad Familiares: From Authentic Letters to Literary Artefact 107
-
Part III: Pseudepigraphic Fictions
- The Latin Letters of Pseudo-Brutus (Cic. Brut. 1.16 and 1.17) 131
- Fictionality and Pseudepigraphy in the Apocryphal Letter Exchange between Seneca and Paul 161
-
Part IV: Ekphrastic Fictions
- Fictions in the Real World: Language and Reality in Cicero’s Letters 181
- Let’s Get Real: Ekphrasis, Reality and Fiction in Pliny’s Epistles 207
- List of Contributors 239
- Bibliography 241
- General Index 259
- Index Locorum 263
