The epitaph of Ovid (Trist. III 3.73-76): the complexity of deixis at the service of poetic sophistication
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/emerita.2019.06.1818Keywords:
Ovid, deixis, Latin literary epitaphs, metapoetry, titulus, poetic bookAbstract
The epitaph that Ovid composed for himself (Trist. III 3.73-76) begins with the adverb hic, a position that immediately draws attention to the deixis. The fact of being a non-real inscription but literary determines the analysis of this aspect both in this case and in other epitaphs of elegiac poets; but Ovid complicates the question by attributing to this text three different enunciative situations: that of an epitaph that would appear exempt in his future funerary monument; that of the letter from exile that he addresses to his wife, where he communicates his funeral arrangements; and that of a poem inside a book addressed to his reader. The overlap of the three situations multiplies the possibilities of identifying the referents of the deictics. The result is the verification that Ovid probably exploited this multireferentiality, which in addition to showing its sophistication reinforces the metapoetic character of the epitaph.
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