This is a guest post by a student I'm lucky enough to have taught this year - Leona Dobrescu. Leona is from Bucharest, in Romania, and I do not know what they teach them in schools there, but it is clearly working. This is an abbreviated version of the essay she wrote for my Martial class. I've never read anything better on Martial by an undergraduate student, or by many postgrads either. Actually, if I'd written this myself, I'd be pretty happy.
SHE IS A FIRST-YEAR STUDENT. Clearly great things can be expected of Leona Dobrescu.
Why do Martial’s books
talk about Martial’s books so much?
If on a winter’s night a traveller, a seasoned reader of
Borges and Eco, happens upon one of Martial’s little books of epigrams, the
greatest surprise awaiting them there is not the smutty language, but the
self-referentiality. There is certainly enough material in his fifteen books
for an anthologist to devote two solely to poems on poetry, poets, the art of
writing epigrams and, most prominently, on Martial himself. This opens some
fascinating avenues of interpretation for the postmodern reader, and the key to
some interesting recent scholarship on Martial; whether or not such readings
are true to the author’s intentions is impossible to say, but also irrelevant.
[1] It
is the act of reading that ascribes intentionality to a work of literature, and
the reader’s choice that decides what the meaning is.
[2]
We cannot say why ‘Martial’ (either the man, the author, or any of a multitude
of first-person voices in his books) chose to write so much on this topic, but
we can choose to analyse the effects of this constant metatextual barrage in
particular, individual, ways. One reading, which this essay will explore and hopefully
prove valid, is that the self-referential epigrams define (and often subvert)
the limits of a ‘new’ genre, while also creating an image of an ideal reader
and of an always elusive author.
[…]
Martial, of course, did not invent the epigram. His audience
would have been familiar with Greek predecessors, such as Callimachus and, more
recently, Loukillios and Nikarkhos, whose style is much closer to Martial’s own
than that of their lofty predecessor. They would be even more likely to
associate epigram with Roman authors, and in particular Catullus and the group
of Neoteric poets. This last connection is the one Martial himself draws
attention to the most, through his repeated claims to be, or to aspire to be, a
second Catullus.
[3]
However, no previous author seems to have dedicated their entire career to this
smallest of genres, nor, interestingly, does any book of epigrams survive with
the same structural variety (even the Milan papyrus is arranged thematically,
like the anthologies).
[4]
Martial’s books, on the other hand, allow new meanings to emerge through the
juxtaposition of themes and characters; the reader is invited to create
associations between consecutive epigrams, and to interpret, for instance, the
invective against the censorious Cornelius at 1.35 as a counterpart to the
moralising voice of the previous poem, condemning Lesbia for her openly whorish
behaviour.
[5] This
interpretation is not, however, obligatory, and it is in this polyphony of
meanings that Martial’s originality lies, and therefore this strategy of
variatio, across large books made up of
small poems, that the self-referential poems are first and foremost attempting
to define – and defend – as art.
This can be seen throughout the twelve numbered books, in a
series of epigrams either explicitly or allegorically discussing the
heterogeneous design of Martial’s books. Several epigrams comment on the
inevitability of quality variation in a lengthy book.
[6]
These have been associated with the poems about mixing wine, and in particular
1.18, where the admonition against defiling Falernian with Vatican (with
poisonous results) appears so soon after the sententious couplet declaring that
a book necessarily blends the good, the mediocre and the bad in 1.16.
[7]
However, Martial adamantly refuses to provide consistent answers to any
question: drinking straight wine is also bad, as is mixing it with water.
[8] The
books are sometimes presented as a feast, and, once again, too fine a gourmand
is no better than an excessively frugal diner. Even though the distinction here
is between a reader unwilling to appreciate lengthy epigrams and one too keen
on biting satire – evidently incommensurable categories – they are still
contrasted as opposites through the culinary allegory.
[9]
Where moderation is recommended, however, there is plenty of room to suspect
insincerity: 1.57 declares a preference for women who are not too coy, nor too
easy. Interestingly, Martial also calls himself out when he fails to follow his
own rule and delivers too many epigrams on one theme, through the voice of
Stella; the childish reply (‘Well, if this seems too much to you, Stella, why
not on your side give me hare twice over for dinner?’) only brings Stella’s
objection into sharper relief.
[10]
The effect of all of these contradictory voices is much the
same as that of the structural principle they are discussing: they draw the
reader into a chaotic environment of epigram, into the tumultuous ‘Rome’ that
emerges from these books, while also forcing him to reflect on what he is
reading, and on the act of reading itself. He is at the same time frequently
told to read the whole book and encouraged to mix and match,
[11] or
even, if he so chooses, to make a ‘Book I’ of a ‘Book II’ by erasing an iota.
[12] The
book of epigrams itself is defined as quintessentially eclectic; its variations
in quality, length and metre transcend the classical aesthetic principle of
unity and harmony, rather than, as it would appear at first sight, simply
infringing upon it. ‘The man who tries to vary a single subject in monstrous
fashion, is like a painter adding a dolphin to the woods, a boar to the waves,’
says Horace, and Martial presents himself as just such a painter.
[13]
[…]
The self-referential epigrams, then, are an integral part of
Martial’s poetic universe. They structure it and define it; they contradict
each other and thereby draw attention to the playful inconsistency of their
world. They call into question its reality by forcing the reader to acknowledge
the part he plays in this literary spectacle, and the choices he makes as part
of the process. Finally, they set up the shadowy figure of ‘Martial’ –
ostensibly the eminently accessible author, made famous all over the world by
his loving fans, but whose actual voice is lost in the cacophony of competing
voices declaiming his poems.
