DE DECKER, J.,
Juvenalis declamans. Étude sur la rhétorique declamatoire dans les Satires de Juvénal.
Van Goethem, Gand, 1913. 206p. Sewn. Unopened, Series: Universit1e de Gand, Recueil de travaux publiés par la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres, 41me Fascicule. ‘This admirably written book is an important contribution to the study of Juvenal and incidentally of Roman rhetoric. M. De Decker starts by accepting the statement of the ancient biography that Juvenal practised declamation till middle life; after which he turned to writing satire. He then proceeds to demonstrate at length the influence of Juvenal’s rhetorical studies on his work as a poet. The practice of rhetoric to which Juvenal devoted himself consisted in the public delivery of declamations; the listening to such declamation, no less than to the recitations of poets, formed one of the chief intellectual relaxations of the educated Roman public under the Empire. The elder Seneca has collected many specimens from such declamations delivered by distinguished rhetoricians; these and the smaller and larger declamations ascribed to Quintilian, as well as Quintilian’s own ‘Institutio oratoria’ constitute the chief sources of our knowledge of imperial rhetoric. M. De Decker has examined analytically the material thus provided from the point of view both of the contents and the form. A detailed comparison with Juvenal’s Satires reveals the same matter and the same style. Though it is the fashion to describe Juvenal as rhetorical, the proof has never been set forth thus clearly. Side by side are ranged quotations from the rhetoricians and from Juvenal. The ideas, the style, the very phrases and words are found to correspond. The result is convincing and instructive. As regards matter the rhetoricians dwelt continually on five commonplaces (loci communes): the same commonplaces reappear in Juvenal. Firstly there is the topic of the depravity of the age, expressed in invectives against the vices and crimes of both sexes (…). Secondly there is the theme of the controlling influence of Chance (Fortuna) and Destiny (Fatum) on human life. Thirdly there is the considertion of the evils resulting from the possession of great wealth. Fourthly there is the topic of cruelty, its poisonings, tortures, murders, parricides, the sensational development of which horrors in the hands of the rhetoricians appealed to the popular emotions after the fashion of the modern melodrama. Fiftly there are trite commonplaces of a philosophical tinge, concerning the care exercised by the gods for human affairs, the impossibility of foreseeing the future, the fact that virtue is the sole path to happiness and the guilty conscience the sinner’s chief punishment (…). Detailed quotations prove that these ideas form the basis of the declamations and are prominent in Juvenal’s Satires. It is thus clear whence the satirist drew his inspiration. M. De Decker justly remarks that the rhetorical merit of Juvenal lies not in the conception of new ideas but in presenting the traditional material of the rhetoricians in a brilliant setting. At the same time he is careful to point out that there are in Juvenal two natures, that of the rhetorician and that of the poet. (…) For along with all his rhetoric Juvenal is a poet of true feeling (…). From the matter M. De Decker passes to the form of the Satires, These, he shows, are not constructed unmethodical, (…) but are planned each according to a precise scheme after the manner of the declamations of the rhetoricians. What is noticeable in Juvenal is his love of dwelling upon details (…). Further, the Satires, like the declamations, are addressed to an imaginary audience or auditor. (Follows a list of features common to Juvenal and the rhetoricians - ND).’ (S.G. OWEN in The Classical Review, 1913, pp. 205-207).
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