Propertius’ Cynthia

AbstractThis book considers the metapoetic and intra- and intertextual habits of Propertius and their relationship with the repetitious amatory discourse that he fashions for himself with his beloved, Cynthia. Where scholarship has tended to treat metaliterary and amatory aspects of Propertius’ poetry as distinct, this volume—focused on Books 3 and 4—argues that Propertius’ discussion of his own poetry and of his relationship to it as an author-figure—his metapoetic commentary—is closely married to, and can be clearly mapped onto, his account of his relationship with Cynthia, especially in Books 1–3. Moreover, it is shown that the elegist’s amorous discourse is constituted of a poetics of repetitiousness that is apt for the articulation of an elegiac relationship that, by its nature, cannot progress: Propertius’ encounters with Cynthia are repetitive, and he mirrors these in his recollection of lexical and thematic aspects of earlier poems in later ones. Each elegy provides a fragmentary glance at Propertius’ relationship and, through repetitions with variation, the poet (re)shapes his readers’ understanding of his amatory discourse. Furthermore, it is argued that, since his beloved is the embodiment of his poetry, Propertius’ account of the vicissitudes of their relationship allows him to articulate the varied transformations of his elegiac corpus; this becomes most significant as the closing cycle of Book 3 appears to end their relationship and to see the beginning of a radical experimentation with the generic bounds of elegy that is expanded in Book 4 and pre-empts aspects of Ovid’s poetic project.