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in the Poetry

OF

P. Papinius Statius

BY

THOMAS SHEARER DUNCAN

DISSERTATION

SUBMITTED TO THE BOARD OF UNIVERSITY STUDIES OF
THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY IN CONFORMITY
WITH THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE

OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

1913

BALTIMORE

J. H. FURST COMPANY

1914

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INTRODUCTION

arts.

Much has been written on the relation of poetry to the plastic The text of the discussion has been stated usually in the form in which it appears in the opening sentence of Lessing's Laocoön:-'Painting is poetry in silence, poetry is painting in speech' (Phillimore's translation). The various critics have been concerned with showing the limitations of the comparison, with emphasising the fact, in one way or another, that the two arts have different spheres, and the canons of the one cannot be strictly applied to the other.

The text goes back to Simonides of Ceos. So we are told incidentally by Plutarch (Quaest. Conviv. 9, 15, 2 f. 748 A.): kaì ὅλως ἔφη μεταθήσειν τὸ Σιμωνίδειον ἀπὸ τῆς ζωγραφίας ἐπι τὴν ὄρχησιν· ποίησιν γὰρ εἶναι τὴν ὄρχησιν σιωπῶσαν, καὶ φθεγγο μévnv öpxnow táλi tǹv toínow. (Cf. Plut. de aud. poet. 17 f., and see also the introduction to the Laocoon, p. xvii). The definition passed over into Hellenistic discussion on poetry and was repeated often. Note, for example, the reference in the Auct. ad Herenn. 4, 28, 39, where it is cited as a familiar definition, being used by the orator as an example of the figure commutatio'; 'item, poema loquens pictura, pictura tacitum poema debet esse'; and Cicero, Tusc., 5, 114; 'Traditum est etiam Homerum caecum fuisse: at eius picturam, non poesin videmus': with Horace's well-known phrase (A. P. 361), pictura poesis. (See Christ, Griechische Literaturgeschichte, 1, p. 219.) A full treatment of the discussions on the subject is given by W. G. Howard, 'Publications of the Modern Language Association of America,' vol. 24 (1909), pp. 40-123.

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Homer had inspired the sculptors. The story was told that when Phidias was asked by his collaborator Panaenus in what type he would embody his conception of Zeus, he quoted the famous lines from Homer:

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