Description:
This volume explores one of the most complex, multifaceted and momentous of all western cultural transformations: the refashioning of the Roman principate under Constantine in the early fourth century AD. It does so through the kaleidoscopic lens of one of antiquity's most fascinating (and maligned) artists: Publilius Optatianus Porfyrius. Optatian's works are little known among classicists and historians. Nevertheless, his picture-poems uniquely reflect, figure, and shape the cultural dynamics of the period. By bringing together different disciplinary perspectives the volume demonstrates how the poems give unique form to the various political, intellectual and cultural currents of the age. Contributors champion Optatian as a uniquely creative artist - and one who anticipated some of our most pressing literary critical, art historical and philosophical concerns today
A new typographic presentation of Optatian's figurative poems -- Opatian and his lettered art : a kaleidoscopic lens on late antiquity / Michael Squire -- Publilius Optatianus Porfyrius : the man and his book / Johannes Wienand -- Optatian and the order of court riddlers / Jan Kwapisz -- Lector ludens : spiel und Rätsel in Optatians Panegyrik / Anna-Lena Körfer -- Vielschichtige Palimpseste : Optatians Gedichte und die Mëglichkeiten individueller Lektüren / Meike Rühl -- The treatment of space in Optatian's poetry / Marie-Odile Bruhat -- Herrscherbilder : Optatian und die Strukturen des Panegyrischen / Petra Schierl & Cédric Scheidegger Lämmle -- Morphogrammata : Klangbilder? : Überlegungen zu poetik und medialität bei Optatian / Irmgard Männlein-Robert -- Elementorum varius textus : atomistisches und anagrammatisches in Optatians textbegriff / Martin Baz̆il -- A lexicographical approach to the poetry of Optatian / Aaron Pelittari -- Optatian and his oeuvre : explorations in ontology / Thomas Habinek -- The power of the jewelled style : Christian signs and names in Optatian's versus intexti and on gems / Sophie Lunn-Rockcliffe -- Conceptual poetry : rethinking Optatian from contemporary art / Jesús Hernández Lobato -- Envoi : a diptych / Jás Elsner & John Henderson