What is it about?
In the first seven lines of his opening proem, where we notoriously find a Hymn to Venus, Lucretius compensates the Muses with an invocative Muse-telestich spelling MuSAS/MuSIS, which is signposted by caeli … labentia signa and thus connected to the Aratean tradition of both heavenly and written “signs”. Moreover, Lucretius’ telestich establishes a firm tradition including (so far) Catullus, Vergil, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan, who mark some of their most emphatic—predominantly, but not exclusively, proemial—passages with variants of the Lucretian Muse-telestich and adjust them to their respective poetic programs. The Muse-telestich thus became a textual device by which Latin poets watermarked their highest poetic aspirations in exceedingly creative ways.
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Why is it important?
That's a playful hybris against the Muses. A study on an invocative telestich which appears to connect some of the most prominent poetic passages in Latin Literature.
Perspectives
This is a risky article, and I'm thus particularly curious about its afterlife.
Dr Ábel Tamás
Eotvos Lorand Tudomanyegyetem
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Muses in the Sky: Lucretius’ Invocative Telestich and its Multiple Revivals in Latin Poetry, Classical Journal, October 2023, Project Muse,
DOI: 10.1353/tcj.2023.a909262.
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