PART II, Chapter 11
GREEK POETRY by Gianfranco Agosti
This chapter focuses on the major characteristics and authors of late antique Greek
poetry and draws attention to the gaps and debates in current research.
Agosti starts out by arguing that although prose writing gained prominence in the late
antique period, poetry enjoyed no less popularity. He suggests that late antique Greek poetry
started somewhere in the time of Diocletian, when rhetoric gained importance and the literary
genres came to be revised in line with a new Christian taste. From the third century onwards,
it is possible to talk about a resurgence of Greek poetry, inspired both by classical tradition
and Christianity. This marked feature of late antique poetry is last observed in the works of
George of Pisidia, in the seventh century.
The poets of the late antique period can be generally categorized into two groups: One
is the ‘wanderer poets,’ who composed for ceremonial occasions and who generally made use
of mythological lore. The other is non-professional poets who belonged to upper echelons of
late antique society either in secular or ecclesiastical posts. Egypt produced, in this period, a
significant number of successful poets, who were patronized and financially supported quite
well. This popularity of poetry would lead to the formation of a new style - but not a school
in the strict sense of the term - of poetry in the fifth century.
Nonnus of Panopolis was the poet who penned the rules for verse composition
according to this new style, and this is the reason why the new style was referred to as
‘Nonnian style,’ but more commonly as ‘modern style,’ as opposed to the Homeric or archaic
style. The productions by the practicers of ‘modern style’ are so diverse as to make it difficult
to describe it as a literary ‘school.’ But starting from the second half of the fifth century, the
‘modern style’ gained such enormous prominence among poets that Nonnus’s works, namely
Dionysiaca and Paraphrase of St. John’s Gospel, came to be new literary models alongside
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. They led to a resurgence of epic poetry, along with displaying
various word plays and artful manipulations of sound, which came to be distinguishing
characteristics of late antique poetry. The latter characteristics are significant in the sense that
they point to the fact that poetry in this period was written to be enjoyed through
performance, usually at public venues. It was common practice for students to perform their
rhetorical exercises in verse or prose before the public, appealing to paideia, a common set of
ideas, concepts and heritage of the late elite. Various debates, declamations and competitions
took place at these venues, leading to a sense of agon among artists, not utterly different from
the ancient times. Another feature of the new aesthetic was the increasing use of descriptions
(ekphrasis) of places, persons, situations; scattered throughout the work. Agosti brilliantly
compares this to the other art forms in late antique period: mosaics with bits and pieces of
jewels and gold, and spolia taken from ancient monuments and fitted into new constructions.
The fact that Nonnus composed these two works of seemingly very different thematic
material simultaneously can shed light on the mentality of religion in the late antique period:
Dionysiaca is about the life of Dionysus and presents a mythological narrative, whereas
Paraphrase relates the life of Jesus. Nonnus presents interesting parallelisms between two
life narratives: both Dionysus and Jesus perform the act of turning a lake into wine, and they
both heal blind men, both of which scenes are described with very similar linguistic tools.
Recent research has found sufficient evidence to conclude that he held a Christian faith in the
writing process. This can mean much for the modern student of the late antique religious
mentality: Nonnus did not probably see any danger of being labeled as a ‘pagan’ in
composing a mythological narrative, to him it was a literary work written to honor the archaic
tradition of poetry and to ponder to the paideia. The two intellectual baggages, one archaic
and one new, were not mutually exclusive but coexisting, if not somehow complementary in
the late antique mind.