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SCIOLI, E., Dream, Fantasy, and Visual Art in Roman Elegy. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison / London, 2015. XII,278p. Paperback. With a lot of pencil annotations and markings by reviewer. Scioli’s goal ‘is to fill a lacuna in the scolarship on Roman elegy. Much has been written about the visual sensibilities of the elegists, and much has been written about the distinctive dream narratives that punctuate their corpora, but this is the first sustained study of the visual qualities of elegiac dreams. (…) In the main chapters, Scioli proceeds by way of detailed philological analysis, adducing comparanda from Roman art to enrich our understanding of the poets’ visual techniques. The promised payoff is nothing less than a renewed understanding of roman elegy itself, for Scioli claims to discover in the elegists’ dreams a distillation of their genre and its central preoccupations. (…) The first chapter lays the groundwork for the study in establishing a ‘basic lexicon for describing dreams in Latin literature’ (p.24). (…) the next four chapters constitute the core of the study, moving in order through the elegists and their dream narrations at the rate of one poem per chapter. (Chapter 2: Tibullus 1.5 - Chapter 3: Propertius 2.26a - Chapter 4: Propertius 3.3 - Chapter 5: Ovid Fast - Rhea Silvia’s dream - ND). (…) In sum, Scioli leaves the reader with little doubt that the dreams of elegy are intensely visual, and that this intensity derives in part from the poets’ skilful evocation of rhythms and motifs familiar from Roman art. Her second claim - that ‘these episodes give us special insight into the fundamental dualism of the elegiac narrator, witnessed in the moment of transition between introspection and exhibition that characterises the elegiac subject’ (p.219) - is less persuasive. (…) That said, students and scholars with particular interest in the four poems discussed in detail will surely find much of value in this engagingly written and thoroughly researched work.’ (CAROLYN MACDONALD in The American Journal of Philology, 2016, pp.361-364). € 25.00 (Antiquarian) ISBN: 9780299303846