Reading Sulpicia Commentaries 1475 - 1990

Focusing on the representation of the Augustan poet Sulpicia in commentaries, this book investigates the interpretative strategies involved in the reading of an ancient text. Mathilde Skoie discusses a selection of commentaries from the Renaissance to the present day, combining the history of classical scholarhip, philology, feminist literary theory, and reception theory. The six short love poems of Sulpicia (Corpus Tibullianum 3. 13-18) have, throughout history, been the subject of numerous different interpretations and judgements. The poems' ambivalent status as poetry, the uncertainties surrounding authorship, the female intrusion in a male-dominated world, and questions about canon and 'feminine Latin' are some of the many issues that make them interesting for an investigation of classical scholarship. The poems can thus be used as a showcase for how commentaries are an interpretative and historically situated genre. Reading Sulpicia is the first monograph on Sulpicia and her reception, and thereby fills a gap in the literature concerning both reception studies and the study of Sulpicia herself.

1 - The first steps: from antiquity to Cyllenius' 15th century commentary
2 - Confronting a sibylline leaf: Scaliger's 16th century commentary
3 - Male chivalry?: Heyne's 18th century commentary
4 - Subtle poetry or feminine fiddling?: Two 19th century commentaries
5 - Sulpicia Americana: Smith's 20th century commentary
6 - The commentator as collector: Trankle's 1990 commentary

Mathilde Skoie is Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oslo