Women and silence in "Pervigilium Veneris"
Kobiety i milczenie w "Pervigilium Veneris"
Keywords: woman; Venus; Diana; Nemesianus; Pervigilium Veneris; silence
The book is the first Polish monograph on the anonymous poem Pervigilium Veneris, which has had many literary and instrumental-vocal interpretations. Analyze of the unusual similarities of phrases and motifs that appear in Pervigilium and in Nemesianus’ poetry led to confirming Monceaux’s thesis that the author of the work may be Nemesianus, a Carthaginian poet writing in the 3rd century AD. The author analyzes the techniques of portraying Diana and Venus and the sisters Philomela and Procne, comparing them with prefigurations contained in poems by Lucretius, Catullus, Statius and Nemesianus among others. The subject of reflection are also the enigmatic words Terei puella and Illa cantat, nos tacemus, which refer to the motif of women’s silence, strongly emphasized in ancient literature.
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