If at the beginning of the 2010s there was no doubt that Nonnian studies were gaining momentum, today we can safely say that, in the last decade, developments in the field have been simply epic. Like many great things in the history of civilization, the boom started in Crete, where the international congress “Nonnus of Panopolis in Context,” the first conference devoted solely to the poet and his world, was held in Rethymno in May 2011. After that, events moved swiftly: the subsequent conferences in this series took place in Vienna (2013), Warsaw (2015), and Ghent (2018). Nonnus-related topics were springing up like mushrooms at other conferences on Late Antiquity and Byzantine times—the two periods that claim rights to the poet’s legacy. Finally, many books and innumerable papers on Nonnus’ works have seen the light of publication, to mention only the proceedings of the two first conferences (Nonnus of Panopolis in Context: Poetry and Cultural Milieu in Late Antiquity, edited by Konstantinos Spanoudakis and Nonnus of Panopolis in Context ii: Poetry, Religion, and Society, edited by Herbert Bannert and Nicole Kröll) and the bulky Brill’s Companion to Nonnus of Panopolis, edited by Domenico Accorinti, which secured the Panopolitan a prominent place (if anyone still doubted it) in the pantheon of Late Antique authors. To put it briefly, from an obscure curiosity Nonnus’ poetry has grown into a major topic of classical scholarship.
However popular it is now, the Panopolitan’s oeuvre has by no means become terra cognita. Quite the reverse: without much exaggeration we may say that despite the scholarly work that has been done so far, Nonnus’ poetry still poses a major challenge to researchers. On the one hand, the old questions about the poet’s identity, the dating of his works, or his attitude toward the Latin tradition remain valid. On the other, once the classicizing prejudice that led scholars to think of the baroque style of the Dionysiaca and the Paraphrasis as decadent and boring had been abandoned, the poems’ originality and depth were acknowledged and provoked fascinating novel questions informed by development of new theoretical approaches. Like every great author, Nonnus offers the reader a universe unto itself—an internally coherent world that can be explored at different levels and from different perspectives. In this world, the classical and Christian traditions form a harmonious and meaningful whole: they legitimize each other as Jesus makes come true what had vaguely been expected of Dionysus. Nonnus’ poetry perfectly exemplifies the intricacies and ingenuity of Late Antiquity and provides an invaluable key to understanding a period that had long been forgotten and misunderstood.
With the present volume, Nonnian scholarship takes an important step toward making both Nonnus’ legacy and his times more accessible to the modern mind. It brings together twenty-six contributions written by both established authorities and younger scholars engaged in pioneering research. Most of the chapters stem from papers given at the “Nonnus of Panopolis in Context iii: Old Questions and New Perspectives” conference that was held at Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw, September 17–19, 2015. Most sadly, the great absentee is Pierre Chuvin, whose illness and subsequent death prevented him from contributing to this volume.
The volume opens with an introductory chapter by the doyen of Nonnian studies, Gennaro D’Ippolito. This contribution, which will certainly become a reference for future scholars working on the poet, offers a comprehensive and up-to-date treatment of scholarly discussions concerning the Panopolitan and his works: the authorship of both the Dionysiaca and the Paraphrasis, the poet’s chronology and identity, as well as his sources. The highlight of the chapter is, no doubt, the section addressing the much-debated question of Nonnus’ knowledge of Latin poetry. An extensive examination of the topic leads D’Ippolito to conclude that the poet must have known the works of Virgil and Ovid.
The twenty-five chapters that follow have been divided into six thematic sections. Part 1, “Nonnus and the Literary Tradition,” consists of six contributions. It opens with a chapter by Berenice Verhelst, who discusses metaleptic passages in the Dionysiaca; that is, the passages in which the narrative boundaries are transgressed, either by the narrator or by fictional characters. As the author demonstrates, the effect of Nonnus’ metalepsis is frequently humoristic and/or draws the reader’s attention to the fictionality of the narrated world. The chapter by Laura Miguélez-Cavero examines Nonnus’ use of encomiastic speech in the Dionysiaca, in particular in the episode of Staphylus in books 18 and 19. In her contribution, Anna Lefteratou takes up the transformation of Aura in book 48 of the Dionysiaca to show Nonnus’ creative use of the metamorphosis literature that results in an ingenious variation on the theme—classicizing and rich in Christian allusions at the same time. The relationships Dionysus has with young men (especially Ampelus) in books 10 and 11 of the Dionysiaca provide the subject for the chapter by Benjamin Acosta-Hughes, who demonstrates how Nonnus’ verse is linked to Hellenistic models. The Ampelus episode is also the focus of Katerina Carvounis and Sophia Papaioannou, who trace in it the possible influences from the Latin tradition, and especially Virgil and Ovid. Finally, Gianfranco Agosti makes a strong argument for the importance of acknowledging the Coptic cultural background, so far mostly ignored, for a better understanding of the poetry of Nonnus.
Part 2, “Literary Structure and Motifs in the Dionysiaca,” contains seven chapters. A. Sophie Schoess explores the concept of looking and being looked at in the episode of Actaeon who, after having seen the bathing Artemis, is changed into a stag and dies torn to pieces—but his true identity is somehow preserved in a tombstone monument visualizing the hero as an animal with a human face. Camille Geisz focuses on some aspects of narrative structure of the Dionysiaca as she analyzes its eight bathing scenes using the concept of “spatial form.” Nestan Egetashvili’s contribution exemplifies the poet’s penchant for playing with opposites by illustrating how he juxtaposes things and events in order to emphasize their differences and similarities. Marta Otlewska-Jung examines the notion of harmony in the epic and comes up with a conclusion that to Nonnus the harmony is not only the force that maintains the cosmic order but also the structural principle of his poetry. Awakenings (especially that of Ariadne) come under close scrutiny in the chapter by David Hernández de la Fuente, who leaves the reader in no doubt that they serve Nonnus to metaphorically mark the transition from the old to the new life. By comparing Nonnus’ Aura and Colluthus’ Aphrodite, Cosetta Cadau points to different models of femininity that existed within Late Antique society: that of a sworn virgin on the one hand, and that of a dedicated wife on the other. The last chapter of Part 2, authored by Fotini Hadjittofi, investigates the shift in gender roles alluded to in the episodes of Europa and Cadmus: while the abducted Europa in fact dominates over her male abductor, Cadmus is both effeminate and powerful at the same time.
The exegesis of the fourth Gospel in Nonnus’ Paraphrasis is the main subject of the five chapters making up Part 3 (“Exegesis through Paraphrase”). Roberta Franchi looks closely at the poet’s pneumatology as she examines the symbols and metaphors, usually of philosophical origin, he uses in reference to the Holy Spirit. The contribution by Jane Lightfoot clearly shows that in both Nonnus’ poems books and writings are always presented as endowed with voice: they speak aloud the words of their authors. Margherita Maria Di Nino and Maria Ypsilanti explore the way in which Nonnus renders the Johannine parable of the Good Shepherd and describe a variety of paraphrastic techniques put to work by the poet. The application of one of these techniques, amplification, by two biblical poets, Nonnus and Juvencus, is dealt with in the chapter by Michael Paschalis who demonstrates that the latter, unlike Nonnus, makes almost no use of it. In the closing chapter, Laura Franco and Maria Ypsilanti analyze Nonnus’ depiction of John the Baptist and Pontius Pilate and provide a detailed overview of classical, biblical, and patristic sources employed by the poet to expand the text of John.
Part 4, “Nonnus and Late Antique Culture,” consists of three chapters. In the first, Ewa Osek compares the killing of the Dircean dragon by Cadmus in the Dionysiaca with the sacrificing of a snake by Helenus in the Orphic Lithica and suggests that both descriptions were influenced by the same esoteric author. Konstantinos Spanoudakis speaks of a great popularity that Theocritus and his poetry enjoyed in Late Antiquity, and discusses spiritual and mystical interpretations of Idylls 1 and 7; his study provides a valuable context for Nonnus’ allusions to the bucolic poet. In her contribution, Nicole Kröll investigates representation of Athens and Berytus (hailed by the poet as the New Athens) in the Dionysiaca and their cultural significance as marks of Greek identity.
Finally, four chapters gathered in Part 5 discuss reception of Nonnus. This section opens with a contribution by Enrico Magnelli who focuses on a short hexametric poem by a certain John of Memphis and offers a new critical edition along with an English translation and a commentary. Mary Whitby discusses the epigrammatic poetry of George of Pisidia and demonstrates that aesthetically and intellectually it belongs to the world of Nonnus and his followers. Domenico Accorinti re-examines the scanty evidence for the reception of Nonnus’ works in the Byzantine times and formulates some speculative hypotheses about why the literature of the period mostly passes over the poet’s oeuvre in silence. Fabian Sieber surveys the studies done on the poet in Germany from 1900 to 1976 pointing to the fact that Nonnus’ works attracted the most attention from German scholars during the inter- and post-war periods.
The editors would like to express sincere gratitude to all those who supported them in making this mega biblion possible. The “Nonnus of Panopolis in Context iii” conference was generously sponsored by the President of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University, while the authorities of the Faculty of Humanities part-financed the editorial works. All the Brill staff, and especially Giulia Moriconi, were wonderfully supportive through the publication process. We are grateful to Katherine LaFrance and Mary Whitby who offered invaluable help with English language revisions in some sections of the volume. Finally, the editors thank all scholars who, during the unusually hot days of September 2015, came to Bielany Forest nature reserve in Warsaw to discuss Nonnus’ verse, and then kindly agreed to contribute to this volume.
Filip Doroszewski and Katarzyna Jażdżewska
Warsaw, May 2020