A Late Antique Poetics?: The Jeweled Style Revisited

The poetry of the late Roman world has a fascinating history. Sometimes an object of derision, sometimes an object of admiration, it has found numerous detractors and defenders among classicists and Latin literary critics. This volume explores the scholarly approaches to late Latin poetry that have developed over the last 40 years, and it seeks especially to develop, complement and challenge the seminal concept of the ’Jeweled Style’ proposed by Michael Roberts in 1989. While Roberts’s monograph has long been a vade mecum within the world of late antique literary studies, a critical reassessment of its validity as a concept is overdue.

This volume invites established and emerging scholars from different research traditions to return to the influential conclusions put forward by Roberts. It asks them to examine the continued relevance of The Jeweled Style and to suggest new ways to engage it. In a joint effort, the nineteen chapters of this volume define and map the jeweled style, extending it to new genres, geographic regions, time periods and methodologies. Each contribution seeks to provide insightful analysis that integrates the last 30 years of scholarship while pursuing ambitious applications of the jeweled style within and beyond the world of late antiquity.

Helen Kaufmann is an independent scholar, UK. She has published articles on the poetics of late antique poetry as well as a commentary on Dracontius’ Medea (2006). She is particularly interested in the connections between space, place and identity in late Latin poetry.

Joshua Hartman is Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics at Bowdoin College, USA. His research focuses on the relationship between literature and memory, especially during late antiquity. He has published articles on Greek and Roman literature, Roman cultural memory and classical reception in Latin America.