Alex Dressler - Selections from the Poems of Paulinus of Nola, including the Correspondence with Ausonius

Edited by Joseph Pucci

Brown University, USA

The Routledge Later Latin Poetry series provides English translations of the works of those poets writing in Latin between the fourth and the eighth centuries inclusive. It responds to the increasing interest in later Latin authors and especially the growth in courses devoted to late antiquity. Books in the series are designed to provide comprehensive coverage to support students studying later Latin poetry and to introduce the material to those wishing to read these important and often under translated works in English.

The RLLP is devoted to publishing creative, accessible translations. Each volume is self-contained: introductory material contextualizes the life and output of the poet in question, and includes manuscript and editorial details; some discussion of metrics and Latinity; and a sense of how the work being translated might be interpreted (including where possible the scholarly history of the same). This section concludes, as need be, with maps and a list of any editorial changes made by the translator to the established Latin text. At the conclusion of each volume, in addition to endnotes and a works cited list, there is a general index that, beyond allowing readers to negotiate content, also serves as a glossary of names, dates, figures, places and events. Volumes hew, as much as possible, to line-for-line versions of the Latin original, so that those who come to the translations with a knowledge of Latin can orient their reading with the original.

By offering English translations of later Latin poetry with comprehensive supporting material the series enables a greater understanding of late antiquity through one of its most important literary outputs. The poems are significant sources for the culture, religion and daily life of the period and clear and imaginative translations also offer readers the chance to appreciate their quality.

The Complete Works of Claudian

Translated with an Introduction and Notes

Neil W. Bernstein

Selections from the Poems of Paulinus of Nola, including the Correspondence with Ausonius

Introduction, Translation, and Commentary

Alex Dressler

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-Later-Latin-Poetry/book-series/LLP

Designed cover image: The Women at Christs Tomb and the Ascension (the Reidersche Tafel), Rome or Milan, c. 400. Ivory plaque, 18.7 cm 11.5 cm 0.6/0.7 cm. Munich: Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Germany. The History Collection/Alamy Stock Photo

First published 2023

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2023 Alex Dressler

The right of Alex Dressler to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Paulinus, of Nola, Saint, approximately 353431, author. |

Dressler, Alex, translator, writer of additional commentary.

Title: Selections from the poems of Paulinus of Nola, including the correspondence

with Ausonius : introduction, translation, and commentary / Alex Dressler.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, [2023] | Series:

Routledge later Latin poetry | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022047441 (print) | LCCN 2022047442 (ebook) | ISBN

• 9781138561359 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032458243 (paperback) | ISBN
• 9780203710845 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Paulinus, of Nola, Saint, approximately 353431Translations into

English. | Paulinus, of Nola, Saint, approximately 353431Correspondence

Translations into English. | Ausonius, Decimus MagnusCorrespondence

Translations into English. | Paulinus, of Nola, Saint, approximately 353431

Criticism and interpretation. | LCGFT: Poetry. | Personal correspondence. |

Literary criticism.

Classification: LCC PA6554.P5 A24 2023 (print) | LCC PA6554.P5 (ebook) |

DDC 871/.01dc23/eng/20221028

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022047441

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022047442

ISBN: 978-1-138-56135-9 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-45824-3 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-71084-5 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9780203710845

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Apex CoVantage, LLC

To Frdric Neyrat a radical Gaul

This volume offers a broad introduction to one of the most exciting chapters of Late Antiquity through direct testimony from one of the last representatives of Roman Antiquity, Ausonius of Bordeaux, and his radical Christian protg, the populist bishop and experimental poet Paulinus of Nola.

The first comprehensive volume in English dedicated to these works in over a century, this book also offers representative selections from Paulinus vast poetic output, from the publicly performed poems that mark his contribution to the emerging cult of the saints to his experimental Christianization of a wide range of Classical genres. Preceded by a substantial introduction discussing the modern significance of these works and their original contexts, the translation is accompanied by running notes for ease of reference and an interpretive commentary rich with illustrative parallels. Taken together, the correspondence with Ausonius and the selections from Paulinus epitomize the personal, political, and spiritual conflicts of their age, offering a lively and concentrated introduction to the life and thought of these two underappreciated contemporaries of Jerome and Augustine.

Accompanied by new and provocative interpretations with detailed but concise historical and biographical guidance, this accessible and stylish translation will appeal to scholars and students of Classics, Late Antiquity, religious studies, social history, and world literature.

Alex Dressler is Professor of Classics at the University of WisconsinMadison. His published works include Personification and the Feminine in Roman Philosophy and articles on Latin literature of all genres and periods, including Roman drama, the ancient novel, epic, epistolography, and lyric poetry, on a wide range of topics, ranging from gender and class to aesthetics and phenomenology.

All ancient works are cited by their most obvious modern title (for instance: Livy, History, Lucretius, The Nature of Things) rather than the more accurate, let alone Latin, title (for Livy: