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Renaissance Reception of Classical Poetry in Fracastoro’s Morbus Gallicus

Vaananen, Katrina Victoria
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6005-3919
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1506444910819066

Abstract Details

2017, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Greek and Latin.
The main aim of this dissertation is to study Fracastoro’s allusive technique: particularly his reception of classical authors. I will identify and assess the evidence for Fracastoro’s reception of these classical authors through a close reading of the Morbus Gallicus and its classical intertexts, and by an examination of that poetry identify and uncover the motifs, themes, diction, and poetic agendas that Fracastoro recognized, engaged, and leveraged – in effect, how he read his predecessors as he produced his own work. The manner in which Fracastoro uses his classical antecedents reveals a greater complexity in Fracastoro’s allusive technique than previous scholars have noticed. This project, at its core, is about coming to a better and more complete understanding of Fracastoro as a poet. Most previous examinations of Fracastoro’s work (and engagement with his antecedents) tend to create a dichotomy between Fracastoro’s works as a man of science and as a man of letters, often implying the primacy of his role as a scientist. In this project, I seek to draw attention to his work – and talent – as a poet. To that end, my discussion starts with Fracastoro’s reception of the authors where a far more reasonable premise would be that Fracastoro was looking at them with a purely poetic eye; the first half of the project deals with the ties to Vergil, Ovid, and Catullus. The influence of Vergil’s Georgics on the basic narrative structure of Syphilis sive Morbus Gallicus is presented practically as a given by several scholars – but a close reading of the passages from Vergil that made a clear imprint on Fracastoro strongly suggest that it was the violent pastoralist approach that spans all of Vergil’s poems that made the most significant impact on Fracastoro – indeed, it infuses the way that Fracastoro communicates the symptoms, causes, and cures for the disease. The second half of the project then moves on to Lucretius, whose influence on Fracastoro has primarily been seen as scientific; scholarly debate has centered on whether or not Lucretius’ philosophy (Epicurean materialism) underlies Fracastoro’s scientific theories. While addressing scholarship and issues surrounding a scientific reading of Lucretius, I will demonstrate how and to what end Fracastoro also read Lucretius as a poet. From this, I am able to demonstrate a poetic agenda that makes deft use of his classical predecessors, and taps into motifs, elements, themes, and poetic agendas that we have barely scratched the surface of in modern scholarship, but is still distinctly and completely Fracastoro’s own, not dominated by or a mere imitation or parody of any of the classical authors he uses.
Fritz Graf (Committee Chair)
Julia Nelson-Hawkins (Committee Member)
Frank Coulson (Committee Member)
212 p.
Classical Studies; Literature
Neo-Latin; Fracastoro; Renaissance Reception; Reception; Vergil; Virgil; Catullus; Ovid; Lucretius; Syphilis; Morbus Gallicus; Medicine and Humanities

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Vaananen, K. V. (2017). Renaissance Reception of Classical Poetry in Fracastoro’s Morbus Gallicus [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1506444910819066

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Vaananen, Katrina. Renaissance Reception of Classical Poetry in Fracastoro’s Morbus Gallicus. 2017. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1506444910819066.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Vaananen, Katrina. "Renaissance Reception of Classical Poetry in Fracastoro’s Morbus Gallicus." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1506444910819066

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1506444910819066
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.