Introduction

AbstractThe Introduction begins from 2.1 and provides an account of Cynthia as Propertius’ scripta puella. It goes on to demonstrate that she is his amatory poetry enfleshed and that the account of his relationship with her—his lover’s discourse—can be closely mapped onto his articulation of his poetic stance as an elegist. In the course of his poetry, Propertius intratextually revisits and recasts his earlier elegies in later ones encoding a poetics of repetition; this is apparent throughout his corpus. The elegiac repetitiousness of language and theme is mirrored in the repetitive nature of the fragmented episodes of the amorous discourse that he construes with Cynthia and with which his reader is presented. It is also argued that, in turning back to revisit earlier books, Propertius integrates later books into his pre-existing corpus, while also reframing that corpus by the addition of new material.