The Rhetoricity of Ovid’s Construction of Exile and the Poeta Structus Exsulis (With aSpecial Addendum Concerning Alexander Pushkin)

摘要

In Ovid’s Tristia and Epistulae Ex Ponto, the Latin poet constructs an elaborate poeticpersona endowed with its own agency, which evokes the sympathy of the reader throughengaging in various modes of discourse. This inquiry examines, in depth, how Ovid fashioned hispoeta structus through complex modes of discourse and from making use of conventions ofgenre, namely elegy and epic. These modes of discourse are identified and explored, as well asOvid’s markedly hyperbolic treatment of the landscape and inhabitants of his exilic outpost ofTomis on the Black Sea. The implications of the exile being surrounded by the Sarmatian andGetic languages are also expounded upon, both in the way the poeta presents the putative effectsof the language of the other, as well as the evidence of linguistic evolution in the ‘actuality’ ofOvid’s situation. A comparison is drawn between Cicero’s notion of naufragium, ‘shipwreck,’ andOvid’s refinement of the term, as well as the rhetorical treatment of exile as a form of death byboth authors. Lastly, a special addendum takes a fresh look at Alexander Pushkin’s nuancedreception of the Ovidian poeta structus in his own exilic poetry from 1820-1825.