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Canidia: A Literary Analysis of Horace's Witch

Paule, Maxwell Teitel

Abstract Details

2012, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Greek and Latin.

This dissertation takes as its underlying premise that the assumption of the existence of a concretized witch figure in the literature of the ancient world is fundamentally flawed and that the highly generalized term “witch” has been applied retroactively to the categorization of so-called witches in the ancient world and has thus condensed a heterogeneous host of characters into a single category for which the ancient world had no analogue.

The introductory chapter is devoted to the exposition of this problem and its proposed solution: the treatment of individual witch characters not as part of a generic group but as specific instantiations of a particular set of actions and attributes primarily contingent upon the precise circumstances of their deployment. The following four chapters examine the six appearances of the character of Canidia in Horace’s (65 - 8 BCE) poetic corpus as a test-case for this hypothesis on the basis that proof of a single character - who is confined to the works of a single author - manifesting multiple, unique aspects that vary from poem to poem, constitutes a significant demonstration of the pluralistic nature of the ancient witch. Such a drastic realignment of these figures’ typology also makes available considerable re-readings of the literature in which these characters appear.

The second, third and fourth chapters examine Canidia’s three longest appearances in the Horatian corpus: Satire 1.8, Epode 5, and Epode 17. Each chapter limits itself to the exploration of Canidia’s role in a single poem and analyzes only those attributes demonstrable in that specific literary context before seeking external analogues – again drawn only from their similarity to one particular instantiation of Canidia’s character. Chapter two examines Horace’s use of Canidia in Satire 1.8 as a liminal boundary-walker intruding in the Gardens of Maecenas as a means to discuss the problematic issues of genre inherent in the composition of the Satires. Chapter three considers the Canidia of Horace’s Epode 5 as the incarnation of a child-killing demon along the lines of Lamia or the strix, and reads the poem as a potential response to Vergil’s fourth Eclogue, a poem that anticipates the birth of a child to usher in Rome’s golden age. The fourth chapter finds Canidia in the role of a demonic Empusa where she serves as the embodiment of Horace’s iambic poetry; an inversion of the elegiac puella, Canidia does not invigorate Horace or inspire his poetry, but saps him of his energy and effectively concludes his book of epodes.

The final chapter is devoted to the three other poems in which Canidia is mentioned only in passing: Epode 3, Satire 2.1 and Satire 2.8. In these poems, instead of functioning as a powerful magical practitioner, Canidia acts as a generic poisoner whose very lack of detailed magical capabilities sets her apart from the three other poems in which she is primarily featured. This final shift in characterization serves as means to review the multi-faceted nature of Canidia’s character and to reaffirm the central thesis of the dissertation.

Fritz Graf, PhD (Committee Chair)
Sarah I. Johnston, PhD (Committee Member)
Richard Fletcher, PhD (Committee Member)
281 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Paule, M. T. (2012). Canidia: A Literary Analysis of Horace's Witch [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1343685076

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Paule, Maxwell. Canidia: A Literary Analysis of Horace's Witch. 2012. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1343685076.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Paule, Maxwell. "Canidia: A Literary Analysis of Horace's Witch." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1343685076

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)