The Medieval Thebaid

TSpace (University of Toronto)

Abstract

This dissertation hopes to deepen classicists’ and medievalists’ appreciation for the historical and cultural importance of the Thebaid, the masterpiece of the poet P. Papinius Statius and the first Latin epic to come down to us in finished form. Although there is little evidence of this epic’s significance for two centuries after the poet’s death, his influence over medieval culture was putatively immense. In spite of widespread but summary acknowledgment of Statius’ importance, a truly thorough study of his medieval reception has been impossible, since direct knowledge of the Thebaid is largely the purview of specialist classicists, and since major primary sources which would be needed for such a study remain unedited and unpublished. I remedy this situation by providing a text of one of these sources, and using it along with the published sources to answer three questions with precision: (1) why and (2) how the Thebaid was read, and (3) what demonstrable effect this reading had on medieval literature. I answer the first question by collecting and analyzing references to the Thebaid in library catalogs, booklists, the treatises of late-antique grammarians, and works of medieval literature whose subject matter is education. The second question is addressed through a discussion of the contents of all of the known late-antique and medieval commentaries on the epic, buttressed by original manuscript work on these texts. The answers to the first two questions are then brought to bear on a reception study which considers first the various Old French versions of the Thebaid, then a variety of texts in different genres and languages written in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The result of this study is a full contextualization of premodern readings of the Thebaid, one which establishes the importance of the pedagogical environment in which it was read. It is this context which is ultimately responsible for the form which medieval authors’ interpretive and creative uses of Statius took, as well as for the immense depth and breadth of his influence.

Authors 1

1. Anthony J. Fredette corresponding Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University · University of Toronto

   Affiliation as printed

   Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Medieval Studies University of Toronto 2021

   RWTH Aachen