CUNY Academic Commons

classics & comparative literature

John Van Sickle
[email protected]

PROTOPLASMIC

1936: born to Kathryn Babcock & John Rowley Van Sickle, nurtured with books, reading, life with gardening, farms, & woods: my father published country weekly newspapers, my mother taught home economics, gardened, sang, played pipe organ & piano.

Her mentor at the Wesley Foundation in Urbana, Elizabeth Burt, came from Radcliffe & inspired Kathryn to send my brother Paul and me to Harvard. Her brother Milton’s wife, Virginia Derrick, designed for me a prescient bookplate—a woodcut piping Pan.

1951–1954: West High School, Rockford, Illinois—Latin with Anna E.Driebusch. Editor of the school newspaper. Summer of 1953 took part in a paleontological expedition from the Nebraska State Museum at Fort Robinson, Nebraska badlands. Visited colleges in middle west, also Swarthmore, which offered a scholarship for $900. My Classics teachers there would have included Helen North & Martin Ostwald.

1954–1958: Harvard College,

chose new course in close reading—Humanities Six—with Reuben Arthur Brower, then more with him. Read Horace & Catullus with Philip Levine, who advised me to pursue honors in Classics rather than the Crimson. Trained as nature counselor, Boston Museum of Science & worked for a summer near Sebago Lake, Maine. Active with Ornithological Society (Jared Diamond, Jack Hailman, John Tuborg, Stevens Heckscher.) 1956: {XX aetate mea} Lucretius with Peter Elder. In class by George Eckel Duckworth read eclogues, which he illustrated with their numerical chapels, after Paul Maury. Nequiquam quoniam. In summer worked as stringer for Rockford Morning Star, as my father had done. 1957: Spring term, audited two courses by Northrup Frye & read his new Anatomy of Criticism. That fall, as Classics club president I engineered a hopefully programmatic talk, “Textual Criticism & Literary Criticism,” by Wendell Clausen—visiting but about to be brought by Brower from Amherst, where he had graduated in 1936 summa cum laude in Classics before going on to become an interpreter of English literature a friend of Robert Frost. Senior thesis topic: Coma Berenices—comparing the still neglected Callimachus & Catullus 66— suggested by Zeph Stewart (canny, before the scholarly surge to come), but I fixed on the concept of vates, sought advice from the elusive Arthur Darby Nock: nequiquam quoniam. Erich Segal & I did Latin compositon in first class of Michael C. J. Putnam.

1958 SUMMER TO LEARN GERMAN— HORIZONS BEYOND HARVARD

Paris, Rome (Ciampino), Naples & Pompei, Athens & Delphi, Florence, Munich, Vienna: dictionary for her language a graduation gift from Anne Driebusch. Confidence at learning the new language would be a touchstone when it became Italy’s turn.

1958–1959: University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Greek lyric, Latin composition, & history of scholarship with Alexander Turyn, who later used to invite me to lunch each summer during his annual returns to his manuscripts in the Vatican. Fellow graduate student, Sam Abrams, poet & alumnus of Classics at Brooklyn College.

1961–1962: back from Urbana, I found Clausen ensconced—his seminar focused on Axelson’s Unpoetische Wörter in quest for textual surety. Some seminarist haughtily denied significance to mannered word patterns, Provoked, to prove him wrong, I set about marking margins in elegy & epos with manneristic stylemes—abvAB, abvBA. Assisting Eric Havelock on the Aeneid, when I remarked how dramatically he recited Infandum regina, iubes renovare dolorem, he chortled, “Plato would not have approved.” Bowdoin prize for Latin prose used to purchase from Arthur Freeman (another habitué of Gordon Cairnie’s Grolier bookshop) a Virgil (Giunta 1544) with pirated illustrations by Brandt.. 1962–1963: the concept that Virgil wrote eclogues to test the potential for epic in his own times, marshalling diverse forms into a concerted book, first came to me from a poet & Villon scholar, David Kuhn. In unbound green & yellow sheets he gave me an eclogue book—W. Antony. The Arminarm Eclogues with Hexercises for the Heclogues. Its sequence skipped PARADIGMS: PASTORAL VS BUCOLIC EPOS: ECLOGUES CYCLED INTO BOOK [email protected] 1 of 10

from III to V, relegating the epic & vatic IIII to an appendix in mannered style. Its impact would shape my work & lead me to have it printed in Rome in 1971. Dissertation topic: Brower’s influence pointed me to pastoral (Virgil & Theocritus). That topic was taken by Charles Fantazzi, so I heard from Clausen. For a topic thus I turned to eclogue four, notoriously non-Theocritean, but singled out by omission from The Arminarm Eclogues and linked by mannered stylemes with Catullus’ epic (64) for reasons to be determined through further research: paths already explored when employed by Steele Commager to check references for his Horace. 1963–1965: Fulbright (La Sapienza, Rome), supported by Commager, who wrote to the Fulbright commission that I would easily learn Italian. Clausen told me to seek out Scevola Mariotti, who was to become a friend, but would find too radical my heritage from Brower & Frye. He soon referred me to a scholar more open to interpretive innovation. Bruno Gentili, founding editor of Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica, who published many of my articles & inspired me to edit a series. For him later I would edit Froma Zeitlin’s densely theoretical reading of the Seven Against Thebes. Gentili took to heart Havelock’s Preface to Plato & his emphasis on orality in Greek culture, also tracing oral & folk tradition in Italy.. At the library of the American Academy I plunged into research & at Libreria Eiinaudi met Joyce Lussu & began to get some taste of cultural currents in Rome.

1965: shepherded by Charlie Segal, I began teaching at Penn. That Christmas in Campidoglio I married Giulia Battaglia.

1966: {XXX a. m.} Dissertation: The Unnamed Child: a Reading of Virgil’s Messianic Eclogue, abstract: Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 71 (1966) 350-351: ‘Reading’ reflects Ben Brower’s influence. In writing I came to see that this eclogue needed to be read in relation to the others, so I pressed on toward that book. The dissertation appeared only in a series edited by Gregory Nagy: A Reading of Virgil’s Messianic Eclogue (New York: Garland 1992).

QUERYING THE PASTORAL PARADIGM

1967: “The Unity of the Eclogues: Arcadian Forest, Theocritean Trees,” TAPA 98 (1967) 491-508 [Editor John Arthur Hanson recognized & nurtured as novel my approach.]

1968: “About Form & Feeling in Catullus 65,” TAPA 99 (1968) 487-501 [fruit of parsing all those mannered stylemes—abvBA]. 1969: “Is Theocritus a Version of Pastoral?” Modern Language Notes 84 (1969) 942-946. {As a post-doctoral fellow in Gilman hall, the Humanities C:enter, Johns Hopkins, I developed friendship with Richard Macksey, who also fostered interest in old scholarly books. Obiit 2019]

1970: “Dialectical Methodology in the Virgilian Tradition,” Modern Language Notes 85 (1970) 884-92. [Reaching for theoretical grasp of significant opposition in the eclogues: intense discussions with Segal, who pushed on farther & faster with both Virgil & Theocritus.] “The Fourth Pastoral Poems of Virgil & Theocritus,” Atti dell’Arcadia 3.V.1 (Roma 1970) 82-97. [Venue suggested by Mariotti, a fellow of the Arcadian academy, as was another new friend from the Hopkins, Charles Singleton—in Arcadia Crisippo Dafneo.] “Poetica Teocritea,” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 9 (1970) 82-97 {toward metapoetic reading under Gentili’s aegis, offended Gregorio Serrao, then a leading Theocritean.].

PRIOR PARADIGM RECLAIMED:

EPOS IN THREE KINDS—BUCOLIC//HEROIC: MIDDLE IN BETWEEN

[As a post-doctoral fellow at the Hopkins, I was invited by Henry Rowell to review Rosenmeyer for AJP. My developing critique of ‘pastoral’ theory primed me to revile the gabinetto verde; but it reminded me, albeit in a dismissive footnote, that bucolic was classified by Quintilian among the epici—writers of epos, along with Apollonius. Epos as a genre with sub-genres—the concept confirmed Kuhn’s intuition that Virgil’s eclogues were an experiment in epic & helped to account for the dialogue with Catullus 64 & Lucretius that research had documented but not well understood in eclogue four.

PARADIGMS: PASTORAL VS BUCOLIC EPOS: ECLOGUES CYCLED INTO BOOK [email protected] 2 of 10

John B. Van Sickle 1974: “Propertius (uates): Augustan Ideology, Topography, & Poetics in Elegy, IV, 1,” Dialoghi di Archaeologia 8 (1974) 116-145 [in Rome knowing Mario Torelli, Filippo Corelli & Roman topography led me again to the vates theme] 1975: “Epic & Bucolic (Theocritus, Id. vii / Virgil, Ecl. i),” QUCC 19 (1975) 45-72. [Major break through: first recognized epic program for liber bucolicon in first eclogue; talk given at American Academy in Rome, liked by Frank Brown & Henry Rowell]. 1976: {XXXX a. m.} “Theocritus & the Development of the Conception of the Bucolic Genre,” Ramus 5 (1976) 18-44. [Fruit of friendly collaboration with Luigi Enrico Rossi.] 1977:“Virgil’s Sixth Eclogue & the Poetics of Middle Style,” Liverpool Classical Monthly 2 (1977) 107-08. [First theoretical clarification that Virgil pitched e6 in middle epos, which helped to account for the seemingly confused allusions to Lucretius, Catullus, Hesiod, Apollonius, Euphorion (Gallus)—pitched above bucolic epos (syracosio versu) & beneath heroic epos (reges et proelia), First of a long series of collaborations with the congenial & quirky John Pinsent & later his widow at LCM.] “ET GALLVS CANTAVIT: a Review Article,” Classical Journal 72 (1976-1977) 327-333. [Title noted on an inscription in some cloister, but never found again.] Review of Ancient Pastoral, A. J. Boyle, ed., Rivista di Filologia 105 (1977) 195-201. “Revising the Eclogue Tradition,” Rivista di Cultura Classica e Medioevale 1977 (Rome 1979) 791-97.

ALL ECLOGUES WOVEN INTO BOOK, THEME VOLUMES ALSO EDITED

1978: The Design of Virgil’s Bucolics (Roma: Ateneo). [Fruit of fellowship at the Hopkins; but when Henry Rowell retired & William Anderson declined to leave Berkeley for Baltimore, Rowell’s successor, Georg Luck, scuttled publication by the Hopkins press, to the dismay of Charles Singleton.] Guggenheim fellowship: “The Poetic Book in Propertius” [supported by Charles Singleton, Bernard Knox, Michael Putnam but finally stumbled at problem of book two.]

1979: the new papyrus fragment of Cornelius Gallus prompted my articles & APA panel. Anne Driebusch dies 26/12/79.

1980: “Catullus 68.73-78 in Context (vv. 67-80),” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 84 (1980) 91-95. 105 (1977) 195-201. [Righting an errant reading by Richard Thomas] Augustan Poetry Books, edited (Arethusa 3): “The Bookroll & Some Conventions of the Poetic Book,” 5-42. [Often picked up by scholars outside the classical field.] “Reading Virgil’s Eclogue Book,” Aufsteig und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.31.1 (Berlin 1980) 576-603. “Gallus & Callimachus: Parallel Texts,” Liverpool Classical Monthly 5 (1980) 109. 1981: “Poetics of Opening & Closure in Meleager, Catullus & Gallus,” Classical World 75 (1981) 65-75. “Style & Imitation in the New Gallus,” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 38 (1981) 115-124. “Neget quis carmina Gallo?” QUCC 38 (1981) 125-127. [Arguing for authenticity.] “Commentaria in Maronem Commenticia: A Case History of Bucolics Misread,” Arethusa 14 (1981) 17-34. “Bucolic Variatio & Single-Minded Reading,” LCM 6 (1981) 189-191.

Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars [my election sponsored by Richard Macksey].

1982: Fulbright Professor for the Virgil Bimillenium (La Sapienza). [Ten lectures published as Poesia e Potere: Il Mito Virgilio (LaTerza, 1986). Alfredo Morelli, a student of my friend Vincenzo Tandoi, attended all ten talks & survived to become an expert on epigram.] “Theocritus Vergilianus?,” Rivista di Filologia 110 (1982) 245-46. 1983: “Strutture interne di singole egloghe nel libro bucolico di Virgilio,” Maia 35 (1983) 205- 212. [Published here by Francesco Della Corte since much longer than the space he had allotted me in the Enciclopeida Virgiliana.]

PARADIGMS: PASTORAL VS BUCOLIC EPOS: ECLOGUES CYCLED INTO BOOK [email protected] 3 of 10

“Order in Callimachus & Virgil (Aitia III-IV / Liber Bucolicon),” Actes VII Congrés F.I.E.C., I (Budapest 1983) 289-292. [Paper for 1979 international congress while I was on Guggenheim leave] 1984: “Dawn & Dusk as Motifs of Opening & Closure in Heroic & Bucolic Epos (Homer, Apollonius, Theocritus, Virgil),” Atti del Convegno di Studi Virgiliani, I (Milano 1984) 124-147. [Talk given in Mantua to celebrate the Virgilian Bimillennium as member of the American delegation shepherded by Michael Putnam.] “Le Bucoliche. 11. La Struttura,” Enciclopedia Virgiliana I (1984) 549-552. [Cfr the fuller analysis in Maia (1983) 35] “How Do We Read Ancient Texts? Codes & Critics in Virgil, Eclogue One,” Materiali e discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici 13 (1984) 107-128. [Queens College, Oxford, in a series of lectures on hermeneutics, tweaking Ian DuQuesnay, inter alios. “Stile ellenistico romano e origini dell’epigramma a Roma,” Dall’epigramma ellenistico all’elegia romana, ed. Enrico Flores (Naples 1984) 9-26. 1986: {L a. m.} Poesia e potere. Il mito Virgilio (Roma: Laterza): the Fulbright lectures for the Bimillennium. Bruno Gentili persuaded Giorgio LaTerza to publish these dense meditations.

1987: “The Elogia of the Cornelii Scipiones and the Origins of Epigram at Rome,” American Journal of Philology 108 (1987) 41-55. ”`Shepheard Slave’: Civil Status & Bucolic Conceit in Virgil, Eclogue 2,” QUCC 56 (1987) 127- 29.

1988: “The First Hellenistic Epigrams At Rome,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies University of London Supplement 51 (1988) 143-156, for the Colloquium honoring the eightieth birthday of Otto Skutsch (December 1986) [He & I both refined Maury’s eclogue numerology. I first met Skutsch when he visited Harvard; later I used to visit him & Gillian in their bungalow behind the cemetery at Golder’s Green in London.] “The Hellenistic Background,” in “Recent Structural Studies on the Augustan Poets,” Augustan Age 9 (1989) 42-48. 1990: “Response to a Georgics Reader Bemused by the Bucolics,” Vergilius 36 (1990) 56-64 (to another disciple of Zeph Stewart’s, Christine Perkell). Divorce from Giulia Battaglia, marriage to Gail Levin. 1991: “Poetry and Ancient City: The Case of Rome,” by Nevio Zorzetti, Classical Journal 86 (1991) 311-329: edited and translated from Italian. Anthropology and Roman Culture, Maurizio Bettini (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), edited and translated from Italian. [After this, the Hopkins press asked me to translate Biagio Conte’s history of Latin literature, but I felt that it needed more strenuous editorial intervention than he would accept. My mistake to miss this challenge.] 1992: “Cicero’s First Biographer in America,” Ciceroniana 7 (1992) 141-149. [Delivered in Italian to Colloquium Tullianum ‘Cicero in America’, New York (May 1991: several hundred scholars & spouses flown by Alitalia) at the Plaza, chaired by Giulio Andreotti & organized by Mariotti] Dissertation on fourth eclogue at last published by Gregory Nagy. BUCOLIC EPOS IN RETROSPECT: TAKING STOCK 1995:

“A Review Article: The End of the Eclogues,” Vergilius 41 (1995) 1-25, a close reading of W. V. Clausen, A Commentary on Virgil’s Eclogues (Oxford 1994). [Emphasized his betrayal of Brower’s hopes that Clausen would at least integrate textual with literary criticism. In response, Clausen ended his annual invitations for lunch at Harvard’s Faculty Club to Vergilius editor, Ward Briggs.] 1996: {LX a. m.} Visiting professor in the spring—University of Tennessee, Chattanooga (Omeros), Sewanee (pastoral), Vanderbilt (eclogues). In fall, moved to 249 East 32nd street. 1997: Rev of “Remus A Roman Myth,” by T. P. Wiseman (Cambridge, 1994), on-line in Bryn Mawr Classical Review (1997).

PARADIGMS: PASTORAL VS BUCOLIC EPOS: ECLOGUES CYCLED INTO BOOK [email protected] 4 of 10

1997: “Staging Vergil’s Future and Past,” Classical Journal 93 (1997) 211-216 reviewing True Names: Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay, by James J. O’Hara (University of Michigan Press, 1996), and Extremus Labor: Vergils 10. Ekloge und die Poetik der Bucolica, by Lorenz Rumpf, Hypomnemata 112 (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996). [Admiring O’Hara, complaining only that he slighted the etiological thrust of eclogue I-VI, faulting Rumpf for isolating eclogue X from the book.] 1998: “The Four Seasons of Greek Poetry. Manuscript Page in Theocritus (Aldus 1495) Transcribed & Translated with Glosses.” Roma, Magistra Mundi Itineraria Culturae Medievalis. Mélanges offerts au Pére L. E. Boyle a` l’occasion de son 75e anniversaire, Vol. 2 (Louvain-la-neuve 1998) [965]-974: [Manuscript in Aldine Theocritus at Fiametta Soave’s shop in Via Leccosa, Campo Marzio, Rome. Leonard Boyle had welcomed my first laptop to the Biblioteca Apostolica & signed my library card in green ink: Vale anche per il pomeriggio.] “Eclogues in Receivership, Bucolics to Reread”: shared between Vergilius 44 (1998) 113-15 and Bryn Mawr Classical Review. 1998–1999: Wolfe Institute fellowship for book on Omeros by Derek Walcott. “The Design of Derek Walcott’s Omeros,” Classical World 93.1 (1999) 7-27.

2000: “Virgil vs Cicero, Lucretius, Theocritus, Callimachus, Plato & Homer: Two Programmatic Plots in the First Bucolic” Vergilius 46 (2000) 21-58 [Narratology limning two plots in first eclogue: cfr “Epic & Bucolic” 1975]

2003: “Quali codici d’amore nella decima egloga di Virgilio? L’eloquio elegiaco contestualizzato nel Bucolicon liber,“ Giornate filologiche F. Della Corte” III (Genova, 2003) 31-62. [also on line: http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/classics/jvsickle/bbground.htm] [Tweaking Gian Biagio Conte for misprison of elegy in eclogue ten] “Theorists Neglect Virgil’s First Reception: Theatrical Propaganda & the Bucolics Performed” (Classical Association of Great Britain, Coventry, April 2003) “Arcadian Myth of Poetics Fashioned by Virgil Building on Theocritus’ First Idyll in the Book of Bucolics” [paper for conference, Arcadia: Uses & Abuses (Oslo April 2003)]

2004: “Virgil, Bucolics 1.1-2 & Interpretive Tradition: A Latin (Roman) Program for a Greek Genre,” Classical Philology 99.4 (2004) 336-53 [Tweaking Franis Cairns for murdering metonymy of Virgil’s avena] The Design of Virgil’s Bucolics (London: Duckworth [Second Edition with review of scholarship & polemical preface]) [http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/classics/jvsickle/05design.htm]

2005: “Virgilian Reeds – A Program Cue in Derek Walcott’s Omeros.” Vergilius 51 (2005) 32-61 [Marram & pastoral metapoetics in Derek Walcott & Auden]

2006: {LXX a. m.}

2007: “A Reader Challenged Theoretically Wonders, ‘Where’s the Book?’,” rev. of Brian W. Breed, Pastoral Inscriptions. Reading and Writing Virgil’s Eclogues, Vergilius 53 (2007): 132. 2009: Rev. of (G.O.) Hutchinson ‘Talking Books. Readings in Hellenistic and Roman Books of Poetry,’ The Classical Review 59 (2009): 413–15 [Reenforcing importance of book concept in divers genres.]

2011: “POST SCRIPTUM. Eclogue Four: A ‘Basic Approach’ Via Paraphrasis, Parabasis, And Metabasis (Anabasis?),” Vergilius 57 (2011): 157–62. [Tweaking Ted Courtney who proposed to help confused graduate students read the fourth eclogue, ignoring my 1992 dissertation in UVA’s own library.] Rev. of Ettore Cingano, ed. Tra panellenismo e tradizioni locali: generi poetici e storiografia (Edizioni dell’Orso, 2010), BMCR 11.62 (2011) Virgil’s Book of Bucolics, the Ten Eclogues Translated Into English Verse. Framed by Cues for Reading Out-Loud & Clues for Threading Texts & Themes. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2011). [Shepherded to print by Dick Macksey, who had published my exploratory essays in MLN when I was a post-doc at the Hopkins.]

PARADIGMS: PASTORAL VS BUCOLIC EPOS: ECLOGUES CYCLED INTO BOOK [email protected] 5 of 10

TWO CYCLES IN ONE WEAVE: [MELIBOEUS I{TITYVUS I, II, III, IIII,V, VI ,}VII, VIII, VIIII,X]

2012:

“The Contrasting Eclogue Cycles that Unify Virgil’s Book of Bucolics” [Paper for APA] “Silenus between Cycles in Virgil’s Book of Bucolic Epos” [Inaugurating series on eclogues at Ohio S:tate.] “Breve rilievo filologico-critico di JVS” [seminario allo Statale di Milano] “Deductum dicere carmen: Recycling from Vatic to Arcadian Poetics via Satyr-play in Virgil’s Book of Bucolic Epos” [Paper for Fordham invited lecture & CAAS.]

2014: Virgil’s Book of Bucolics, the Ten Eclogues Translated Into English Verse: Framed by Cues for Reading Aloud and Clues for Threading Texts and Themes: The Illustrated Digital Edition [Kindle Edition]. (Brooklyn: Bare Knuckles Press, 2014) [published by Eddie Vega who commissioned illustrations by Winston Blakeley in graphic novel style].

The Virgil Encyclopedia,, Wiley-Blackwell.(2014). [Edited by Richard Thomas & Jan Ziolkoski.] “bucolics,” 1.211. “Damoetas,” 1.332–33. “Damon,” 1.333. “Daphnis,” 1.337–38. “Meliboeus,” 2.808–09. [Needs supplement at least for Meliboeus in Calpurnius, Dante’s eclogues, Chaucer, & Spenser’s Fairie Queene. “Menalcas,” idem, 2.812–13. “Mopsus,” idem, 2.842. “Tityrus,” idem,3.1275–77 [amply supplemented by Ziolkowski].

2016: {LXXX a. m.}

Rev. Paola Gagliardi, Commento alla Decima Egloga di Virgilio. Spudasmata 161. Hildesheim: G. Olms, 2014.” Vergilius 62 (2016): 153–57. [No clue that this eclogue caps & integrates the book, like Rumpf.] 2017: “Gallus and Vatic Mopsus in Virgil’s Liber Bucolicon”, Symposium Cumanum & CAAS. [Returns to emphasize how Virgil pitched the sixth eclogue as middle range of epos & emphasize that the etiological epos by Euphorion, ‘Origin of the Grynean Grove,” featured a Mopsus defeating Homeric Calchas (translated by Cornelius Gallus): then Mopsus featured in e5 as a pushy youngster herding old Menalcas from bucolic shade to an epic cave. 2018: “Pimping Pastoral: Mantuan versus Maro for Schools,” accounting for 1500s reception of Mantuan’s ten eclogues—Adulescentia— in the schools of France (Badius Ascensius), Germany (Luther), England (Shakespeare) in preparation for publishing my verse translation & commentary for I Tatti Renaissance Texts. Projected essays faulting the representative anecdotes marring recent studies of eclogues oblivious to both liber & epos—reverting to chit-chat about eclogues in isolation, even to chronology of their composition, unmindful of book poetics, ignoring these fifty years of scholarly argument PARERGON: ARCHILOCHUS: NEW EROTIC EPODE FROM COLOGNE Martin West sent a copy of the Cologne Epode to Luigi Enrico Rossi & we looked at it together in that crowded penthouse library at Via Aventina, 25. It prompted a lively diversion. 1975: “Archilochus: a New Fragment of an Epode,” Classical Journal 71 (1975) 1-15. “The New Erotic Fragment of Archilochus,” QUCC 20 (1975) 123-156. 1976: “The New Archilochus Texts, The Problem of Authorship, The Meaning of Line 10, Select Bibliography for the Cologne Epode,” Arethusa 9 (1976) 129-150. 1978: The New Archilochus, ed. (Arethusa 1978), edited volume. “Archilochus: the Hasty Emendation,” Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 15 (1978) 171-73.

1980: “On the Cologne Epode’s End Again: an Antinote,” Classical Journal 75 (1980) 225-28. PARADIGMS: PASTORAL VS BUCOLIC EPOS: ECLOGUES CYCLED INTO BOOK [email protected] 6 of 10 John B. Van Sickle Verse translation of the Cologne Epode, adopted for Archaic Greece by Anthony Snodgrass (London 1980) 171-172. PURSUING BOOK POETICS: AN N AN UNKNOWN RENAISSANCE PROGRAM BOOK.

[At the now (2014) extinct Libreria Rovello of Mario Scognamiglio in Milan (erstwhile haunt of Croce, Einaudi, Spadolini, Eco) I came upon Latina Monumenta Ioannis Casae (Florenitae 1564), which I figured out must be Monsignor Della Casa, then bought & began to study, encouraged by Paul Oskar Kristellar, who directed me to manuscripts from the Ricci archive, being restored for the Vatican, & to look for Casa manuscripts also in Venice, Munich (Pier Vettori’s archive), & the Bodleian.]

1987: “IOANNIS CASAE CARMINVM LIBER: Catullan Theory & Horatian Practice in a Cinquecento Poetic Sequence,” 8o Congresso Internazionale di Studi Umanistici, Sassoferrato (June 1987).

1989: “Riscoprendo una sequenza poetica del cinquecento: Ioannis Casae Carminum liber,” Res Publica Litterarum 12 (1989) 223-227. “Crisis of Life and Genre in the Late Renaissance: the Poem Book of Giovanni della Casa,” Renaissance Society of America (Boston 1989). 1990: “Una nuova sequenza poetica del cinquecento: il Carminum Liber di Giovanni della Casa,” Catalan Institute of Classics, Barcelona, 1990. . 1996: From Rome to Venice for a Cure, From the Poem Book of Giovanni della Casa, Translated from the Latin by John Van Sickle, Prints by John Ross (East Hampton, New York: High Tide Press, 1996) 1999: Giovanni della Casa’s Poem Book: Ioannis Casae Carminum Liber Florence 1564, edited & translated with commentary. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1999].

PUBLICATION & ACTIVITY IN DIVERS AREAS & MEDIA

“Elie Nadelman’s New Classicism,” Sculpture Review 46.4 (1998) 8-15, with Gail Levin. Rev of “Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies,” by Jared Diamond [Harvard class of 1958 s.c.l.] (W. W. Norton 1997), Bryn Mawr Classical Review (1997). “Paris No Paradise for Pissarro in New Epic by Nobel Poet-painter Derek Walcott,” a reviewarticle with Gail Levin on Derek Walcott, Tiepolo’s Hound (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000), Art Journal Spring (2001) 107-09. ”“Donald Hinkson’s Watercolours,” in Jackie Hinkson Caribbean Vibrations Watercolours, oils and drawings (London: The Mall Galleries, 1999), with Gail Levin. “Sarah Plimpton New Paintings” (New York: June Kelly Gallery, 1999), with Gail Levin. “The Painterly Visions of Derek Walcott & Donald Hinkson,” Latino(a) Research Review “CUNY Critics Should Blame Themselves,” Letter to the Editor, New York Times (March 31, 1997, A 14). “‘Anything New to Show Me?’ Visiting, Collecting, and Natural History’s Roots,” in The Nature of Collecting, Newsletter of the South Fork Natural History Society 7,1 (1996) 26-27.

SARAH PLIMPTON , “On first looking at these new canvases,” essay for June Kelly Gallery (1994). “The Tragedy in Translations,” review of the Broadway revival of Brian Friel’s play & account of brief barroom interview with the playwright, published on-line in BMCR (1994). Editorial Collaborator:Edward Hopper An Intimate Biography, by Gail Levin (Alfred A. Knopf 1995): “This book is joyfully dedicated to my husband, John Babcock Van Sickle, who deserves credit not only for his unflagging interest and enthusiasm, but for his unique contributions which have been collaborative in the best sense. He has supplied remarkable insights at every level, literary acumen, translations, editorial improvements, and above all, good cheer at sharing our home with the Hoppers for so many years.” Oral History: Taped interviews with Larry Penny, Director of Natural Resources, Town of East Hampton, for the South Fork Natural History Society. Taped Interview witlh Cipriana Scelba, long-time head of Fulbright Program for Cultural Exchange between the United States and Italy.

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Publisher: W. Antony (David Mus, sc. David Kuhn), The Arminarm Eclogues With the Hexercises for the Heclogues (Roma 1971).

WEB PAGES & DISTANCE LEARNING, APPROACHES TO TEACHING

“New Activism in Class: An Experiment in Teaching and Curriculum,” in Classics. A Discipline and a Profession in Crisis, Phyllis Culham and Lowell Edmunds, edd. (Lanham, Md. 1989) 169-176. “Adventure & Discovery Narrative“: Humanities Seminar in the Epic Tradition — Homer, Odyssey; Petronius, Satyricon; Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn; Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse; Derek Walcott, Omeros. “Poetics of Nature & Culture“: Humanities Seminar in the Pastoral Tradition — Theocritus, Virgil, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Dickens, Frost. “Landscape & Livelihood“: Humanities Seminar in the Roots of Ecological Thinking — Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, Hippocrates, Aristotle, Lucretius, Virgil, Pliny (Natural History), Augustine. “Towards Interculturalism in Class,” report of experiments with collaborative and interactive classroom procedures to foster intellectual community while teaching Greco-Roman culture in the Brooklyn College Core Curriculum (forthcoming in Classical World). “CORE STUDIES 1: Classical Origins of Western Culture. INTER-ACTIVE WORKBOOK. A pedagogic weapon / tool: Inspired and provoked by student difficulties with reading, writing & general acculturation in the basic course in Brooklyn College’s Core Curriculum; part of an approach gradually worked out in class, which combines a WORKBOOK with the use of SMALL DISCUSSION GROUPS. The approach also seeks to place the classical experience in an interdisciplinary perspective, making connections “across the Core.” “Roots of Style: Greek & Latin Elements in English“: taught on occasion as a separate course but also woven into the fabric of all my teaching, to share information about etymology and word formation, instill methods of analysis, encourage practice, and develop awareness of language as a document and instrument of historical change.

“Informatica e Studi Classici: Didattica e Ricerca Fra Mito e Mezzo,” Pontifical Salesian University, Rome (Conference for teachers), University of Genoa (Conference for teachers), University of Torino, University of Palermo.

LECTURING CURRENT & PAST CAAS & Symposium Cumanum 2017: “Gallus and Vatic Mopsus in Virgil’s Liber Bucolicon UCSB & USC, 2014 “Illunstrating the Bucolics in Graphic Novel Style/” Ohio State, Inaugural to ten lectures on eclogues, Fordham Classics.

CAAS “A Gardner Friendly Guide to Greek & Latin Names of Plants.” “Quali codici d’amore nella Xa egloga? Il poeta elegiaco contestualizzato nel Bucolicon liberdi Virgilio“ “Heroic Identity Recast: Epic & Pastoral Tradition in Derek Walcott’s Omeros“ “Epic Crossings: Echoes of Homer, Virgil, Dante, Joyce, & The African Queen in Derek Walcott’ Omeros,” “Derek Walcott’s Omeros & Its Island Background–St Lucia (with slides),” “Classic Reverberations in Modern America (with slides),” “Poetry & Prophecy in the Virgil Myth,” “Poetics of Empowerment in Pastoral: Moses, Hesiod, Theocritus, Virgil, Frost,” Other venues include The University of California (Los Angeles & San Diego, 1999), University of Havana (1999), CUNY Academy of Arts & Sciences, American Philological Association Annual Meeting (Chicago 1997), Speakers in the Humanities (New York Council for the Humanities), Classical Association of the Atlantic States, & the following institutions: Emory University, 1992, University of Washington (Seattle), Yale University, Nassau Community College; also University of British Columbia & in Italy, PARADIGMS: PASTORAL VS BUCOLIC EPOS: ECLOGUES CYCLED INTO BOOK [email protected] 8 of 10 the Universities of Padova, Trieste, Bologna, Roma, Salerno, Genova, Napoli, & Torino; in China, Xi’an, Japan (Kyoto) Ritsumeikan, (Tokyo), Waseda & Musashino Art. “Pastoral Ideology & Some Pitfalls in Deconstructing Tradition,” International Society for the Classical Tradition, Tübingen, Germany (August 1992). “Riprese classiche nel modernismo americano,” Conference on the Machine Age and Classical Culture, sponsored by the University of Siena and Associazione Nuova Civiltà delle Macchine, Forlì, Italy (November 1991). “The myth of Virgil as poet-prophet in Western tradition“: American Academy in Rome (part of a conference on New Approaches To Latin Literature), University of Pisa, University of Pavia, University of Padua, also with consultation on computer use, University of Trieste, also with computer consultation, University of Naples, University of Palermo. “Il computer nell’area umanistica,” June 1984, at the Universities of Rome & Urbino & IBM Instructional Centers in Novedrate (Milan) & Rome; also in December 1984, for Conference, MONDO CLASSICO: Itinerari di lettura e proposte didattiche, University of Bari.

PANELS & CONFERENCES “Epigramma e Elegia“ University of Genoa, 2002: “Quali codici d’amore nella Xa egloga? Il poeta elegiaco contestualizzato nel Bucolicon liber di Virgilio.” Invited to Panel for the 1997 APA Annual Meeting (Chicago): “From Homer to Omeros: Approaches to Derek Walcott’s Omeros and The Odyssey: A Stage Version.”

Invited Moderator for panel, “Hellenistic Poetry,” annual meeting of the American Philological Association, New York 1996. Invited Panelist, Convegno, Dall’epigramma ellenistico all’elegia romana, Società italiana per lo studio dell’antichità classica, Naples, November 1981. Invited Member of US Delegation to the Convegno Mondiale Scientifico di Studi su Virgilio, Mantua-Rome-Naples, 19-24 September, 1981. Invited Panelist for Arethusa Symposium on Virgil, 1980. Seventh International Congress, International Federation of Classical Studies, Budapest, 1979. Principal speaker & discussant, Virgil Conference, Classical Association of the Southwest, 1977.

Organizer & participant in panels at annual meetings of the American Philological Association: 1971 (pastoral tradition), 1975 (the new Archilochus papyrus), 1977 (Book Rolls & the Structure of the Poetic Book), 1979 (the new Gallus papyrus). EDITORIAL & ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIVITY American Academy in Rome: Advisory Council, Classical School; Past-President, Classical Society; Friends of the Library. Referee for American Journal of Philology, Classical Journal, Classical World, Glyph, Greek, Roman & Byzantine Studies, Modern Language Notes, Text, Transactions of the American Philological Association, Vergilius, Oxford University Press, University of Wisconsin Press. Editor of a monograph series, “INSTRVMENTVM LITTERARVM: Latin Literature & its Tradition“: [* publication aided by computer] * E. Courtney, Juvenal. The Satires: A Text with Brief Critical Notes. Gregson Davis, The Death of Procris: ‘Amor’ and the Hunt in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Colin Macleod, Horace. The Epistles: Translated into English Verse with Brief Introductions and Notes. Foreword by R. G. M. Nisbet. Thomas Curley, Senecan Tragedy. David Mus, Critical Essays. Encounters of Poets: Eliot & Pound, Shakespeare & Bonnefoy, Homer & Jacotet, Coleridge & Wordsworth, Virgil & Milton. Corresponding Editor, Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica. Regional Editor, Classical Journal (1978-1983). Latin Reading Group (voluntary) for graduate students in Medieval Studies & Comparative Literature (CUNY-NYU): Seneca, Tacitus, Ovid, Horace, Virgil, etc. (1979-1985)

PARADIGMS: PASTORAL VS BUCOLIC EPOS: ECLOGUES CYCLED INTO BOOK [email protected] 9 of 10 EMPLOYMENT Vanderbilt University: Visiting Professor of Classical Studies (1996). University of the South, Sewanee: Visiting Professor of Comparative Literature (1996). University of Tennessee, Chattanooga: Visiting Professor of Humanities (1996). Brooklyn College: Director, The Ford Colloquium (1989-1992). Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies, Rome: Professor-in-Charge, Visiting Professor (1972- 1974). Brown University: Visiting Associate Professor (1971-1972). University of Pennsylvania: Instructor, Assistant Professor (1965-1971): my ideology in philology & politics proved anathema to old-school mind-set in alumni from the Hopkins & Illinois. Professor of Classics (Brooklyn College, 1979-) & of Classical Studies & of Comparative Literature (Graduate School), The City University of New York. Associate Professor (1976-1978). Seminar Associate, Columbia University: Classical Civilization (1975-), Theory of Literature (1977-), The Renaissance (1986-) HONORS & AWARDS Distinguished Teaching Award, Brooklyn College (2002) Faculty Fellow, Wolfe Institute for the Humanities, Brooklyn College (1998-1999). Brown Foundation Fellow, University of the South, Sewanee (1996). Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio, Lake Como, Italy: Scholar in Residence (1993) Fulbright Professor for the Virgil Bimillennium, Rome University (1982). Fulbright Fellow, Rome University (1963-1964, 1964-1965). The Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars (elected 1981). The Johns Hopkins Humanities Center, Postdoctoral Fellow (1969-1970). John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow (1979). Harvard University, The Center for Hellenic Studies, Junior Fellow (1974-1975). Bowdoin Prize (Graduate, Latin Essay), Harvard University (1962). [Set in 10 point Times Roman since Palatino Linotype 10 point would occupy thirteen pages] PARADIGMS: PASTORAL VS BUCOLIC EPOS: ECLOGUES CYCLED INTO BOOK [email protected] 10 of 10

[here begins a meditative Mediterranean versification]

CLASSI CS all the page tops call my classes.
Therefore, you, now looking at this image
starting with me a spring term’s study,
might be said to have heard a call.
“It’s CLASSI CS calling?”
Wait a minute!
Sounds like one of those robot calls—
promising payouts, pushing scams.
Yet when it’s ‘Cl assi cs, I can’t just
slam down, hang up. I can though call to account
the page tops, query where from, when, by whom,
for what & why one header classifies Democracy,
Tyranny, Empire, with Mythology of Greece &
Rome, & Making Pastoral Myth,’
can query ‘CLASSI CS’ claiming every screen.
[email protected] 1
In short, the CLASSI CS moniker calls
for questions—why & how to study, what to make
of different sorts of items: some to be sure that will
get featured on CLASSI CS screens like January’s
hymned inaugural urgent ode; but still more what
to make of items already featured so long they might
seem stale, might benefit from fresh first looks
via Rubric for Reading:
Who gave ‘Cl assi cs’ pride of placement?
Where did ‘Cl a s s i cs ’ come from?
When did ‘Cl a s s i cs ’ get so called?
What did ‘Cl a s s i cs ’ call on, or call on?
Why did ‘Cl assi cs’ get to be called first class?
How may ‘Cl a s s i cs’ own a spot, still now
no longer claim top screen?
RUBRICATION ―‘red line
guides’ for scribes on a
medieval manuscript
of Thomas from Aquino―
town (where Cicero likewise
native son) not far south
from Rome.
[email protected] 2
The Rubric for Reading {RfR}from Who to How—
where HOW recalls in other order WHO —
may council, index, star in text or mark
in margins, items to migrate into journals,
file in order, ready to thread, reorder in
order to count, recount, accounting for how you
study & what you bring to class, exchange
with peers & hope to make your own & theirs..
Research via RfR on Cl a s s i cs hits right off
conflicting claims for Cl a s s i cs ,whether it’s getting called
too colorfast to get retained atop our screens;
or clarion incandescent screed for turbulent factional force;
or candidly alert via RfR to comb out cultural clews .
[email protected] 3
Clicking Classics almost stymies RfR (circa 5,710,000.000 results),
with contretemps: “He Wants to Save Classics From Whiteness.
Can the Field Survive?” (click here), calling Classics closet racial,
still “Don’t yield ancient history and literature to the alt-right” (click here).
Quick further RfR hits Cl a s s i cs once acclaimed for calling light
from ancient Rome & Greece against ecclestiastic dark,
denominated catholic via Greek & Roman via still imperious Latin. Still.
though not yet called ENlightenment, Classics had enjoyed by metaphor
rebirth (Renaissance: circa 228,000,000 results) adorned with colloquy:
Humanism. (circa 370,000,000 results) —present active Latin, salving exiled Greek.
Meanwhile research via RfR tracks Cl a s s i cs back millennia
(Latin ‘thousands years’) to Mediterranean—sea closed in by
Africa’s north shore, Asia’s west coast, Europe’s jig-sawed southern stretches.
[email protected] 4
5
Mediterranean— known, though lately less for Classics
than for diet —features Latin medi-,
‘middle,’ as in medio
(Spain, Italy), midi (France) & English ‘middling,’
likewise terra, ‘land’ in Latin & in Italy, tierra (Spain),
but terroir (France, & Napa, Cutchogue), till terrestrial (English):
parsing Mediterranean thus by nomenclature ‘amid lands.’
Then to call the sea’s three borders ‘continents’ entails
another claim to call on Latin terms: con- meaning ‘with, together’:
fixed thus first con- points the action codified by TiN, in Latin
meaning ‘keep’ or ‘hold.’ So con with TiN together means
‘together hold, keep with,’ while ‘conTINents’ [since Latin –NT –
counts as English –ING] means ‘keeping together’ sea—
with wave-lapped beaches edging sprawled tectonic plates.
Now TiN, that brings the verbal force, is called the root or stem—
from parts of plants. called parts of words via metaphor.
TiN ‘to hold,
to keep,’
as in
ConTiNue,
PerTiNent,
also TaiN,
as in
perTaiN,
conTaiN,
imperTiNent.
inconTiNent,
& TeN in
TeNure,
TeNant, TeNet,
entertain,
retain.
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6
Whilst Mediterranean via terra, tierra, terroir tells
colonial Latin’s emigration north & west up Europe,
eastward Europe figures personified in myth―Europa’s immigration.
When? Time figured back so far that continents were still not called so.
Where? To Crete’s substantial island, slated future sill for Europe,
reached via troubled short sea traverse leaving Asia’s western shoreline,
after likewise troubled travel―up from Egypt demigration―
after Io’s emigration tracked―her boomorphic crossing Bosporus,
breasting her named sea, post herding by the wakeful Argus
(keen till killed by lulling Hermes). once from Argos forced before
its pendulant peninsula later called by her kin ‘Isle of Pelops.’
What? Migrant miscegenerate mingling Mediterranean ever exchanging—
Greek, Nilotic, gods & heroes, cities recycled, remigrations.
Why? Could any nature, human or more than human, count
on so much vying, othering, getting, owning, crossing
indiscriminate—middling & outlandish—typically mixing kind & unkind?
[email protected]
7
Who? Genealogy calls Europa, Greek, ‘wide watcher,’ gendered female,
hence recalling plots endorsing gender stereotyping—sister,
daughter, mother, queen, witch, crofter, artful crafter, often forced
for sex or work (in 1975, just migrant to Manhattan were’nt we
called by Peter Schocken launching Goddesses, Whores, Wives
and Slaves: [by Pomeroy, S. B.] Women in Classical Antiquity ?)
Europa, ‘wide eyed,’ sexual pick by father Zeus, ‘Bright day’,
& tricked by his tauromorphic guise to ride his back to Crete—
type tale (deceit, seduction, origin plot, foundation, cock & bull):
all classic lines that tempt embroidery, mythopoeic text adornment,
prompt incontinent tellers bent on spinning stereotypes, thus
maiden tricked to mother Minos, archetypal naval classic,
sister stolen sought by brother Kadmos’ search
that brought from Asia signage still spelled alpha bet.
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In Asia Europa’s immigrant father, called Agenor, hailed
from Egypt, demigrant from his bullying brother Belos (Baal) &
Berber mother Libya (by Zeus’ brother Poseidon burdened), she herself
a daughter born to Memphis (city, daughter—Nile’s not Mississippi’s),
Memphis local bride for immigrant Epaphus, ‘Tag’ in tagged by Zeus.
By Zeus? Our story left Europa bullied on Crete, her father, Agenor,
fathered by Zeus’ sibling sea god linked with Libya, child
to Memphis, hitched to Epaphus, ‘Tag’ great-grandsire for Europa ,
whilst his father her great-great-grand-pêre tauromorphic Zeus:
stay tuned for kin from Tag remigrant back to mother Io’s Argive source.
[email protected] 8
9
How? threads tangled—cousins, second, first, removed—like kindred clews
my mother used to comb & order. Classics classes though may query
where like items stem from, stand for whom, as if from Lonely
Planet, Blue Guide, Rough Guide, Libya, Egypt, Memphis, Nile
personified, paired off via verbs like hitched, joined, wed. in plots
to thicken by picking terms like barter, steal, inveigle, win, enslave,
rape—apparat verbs called in stories to stand for what’s seen, heard
read, really wanted, suffered, fearsome: stories reckoned to look like
truth, if not true: mold mythology comme il faut, draft names as if
carte blanche from Map-quest, moeurs humanes, too much so.
Search on ‘Libya, migrant [(Circa 3800000 results), “New evidence
shows refugees and migrants trapped “ …www.amnesty.org › 2020/09.
‘Migrants, female, male rape’: nihil humanum mihi alientum
nothing human strange, alien, other to myth..
[email protected]
10
Meanwhile, back in school for Classics, one spring term will not
suffice to scout Europa’s Minos, Daedalus, Minotaur, much less Io’s
kin remigrant back to Argos―gentry down through Menelaus, Helen o’Paris,
Troy destroyed, Aeneas fled, his fated odyssey’s fatal wreck in Libya,
onward tale via tricorn Sicily, vatic Cuma, premising lofty Rome.
Via myth the Mediterranean story swells to out-grow ‘mid lands’;
skirting ‘meddle;’ rising to ‘meditate migration’ meaning to plot, to
intend to do,’ or up to ‘mediate exchanges,’ hinting restless migrant ranging
searching caught forever short of own & wanting other’s promised terra.
Clock via RfR Europa’s hybrid east but likewise track from
Mediterranean up through terra, tierra, terroir, territory—
terms from Rome’s encroaching Latin stalking Europe’s west,
where every changed inflection talks colonial invasion’s
forced exchanges via migrations: still despite mutations land.
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11
The sequence—terra, tierra, terroir—stems
from Latin spoken, gossiped, muttered, scrawled, inscribed,
penned, versified at Roma, meaning ‘strength’ in Greek:
one further symptom how that sea was median―folk
exchanging each with other, migrant, whether in war
or trade—intriguing commerce, daring piracy & pillage,
pressing conquest, extirpating or enslaving, owning others.
Boats in battle rammed or storm-tossed―kept from home or
destined markets―crowd the bottoms, decks still heaped
with amphors cracked though sealed & vintage year-marked,
emptied too of oils anointing glistening athletes. Also ingots,
armor. coin hoards attracted George & Anna Margaret
to pioneer these ever daring, deeper Classics quests.
[email protected]
12
Back millennia folk with horses, cattle, deity ‘bright day’ father —
drifting down from northern flatlands: eastward migrant nearing Europe—
called their way & walk through field & woodland ‘PaT.’ Like linguistic
logic then called ‘PonT’ the way to get to islands beckoning over inland sea.
Still other kin to those ‘bright father’ people drifted westwards south down
Italy’s slim peninsula, where what one kept wanting to get to wasn’t some far
island shore but close-up river bank: closeness made them make their term for ‘way
there’ neither PonTos ‘sea,’ nor PaTH (field, forest), rather PoNS, PoNTis
‘crossway, bridge,’ a rocky Tiber ford at Rome nor trivial thrice exchanging,
{I} migrants crossing Italy north & south, {II} while routing Via Salaria traffic in
salt from seaside flats to upland rivals, {III} mingling merchants too—arrived from
every Mediterranean port & stayed by rocky ford from further sail upriver—
making market (forum) trading oil, wine, stock in slaves & cattle
(capital captive, interest pecuniary. lively emporium, travelers’ port).
:
[email protected]
[email protected] 13
Nature apt for human culture, colonial—amphitheatrical, entrepôt
secured by looming mesas (Spanish from Latin mensas) ‘table lands,’
Rome’s ‘Seven Hills,’ employed for urban purpose: fortify, one sanctify
reserve for ‘bright day’ father (Iupiter migrating Zeus pater), call
gangs to dig a drain (cloaca ) channel run-off down to Tiber
drying land to mark a second market (forum not for stock)
where neighboring hilltop settlers could coalesce & restless quarrel.
Location, Rome, location! What would human nature make of this?
How to cultivate, to culture, colonize, what derring do on such -ike banks—
here too would human nature prove itself to its own self too true?
Exceptional for order & disorder, deeds to retail via mythopoeia—
spinning yarns resembling truth, sometimes claiming truth.
[email protected] 14
Migrating ΡΩΜΗ ,‘strength’ from Greek to Latin, ROMA collimates
with Latin’s other means for owning Greek― exchanging names in migrant,
mediate, mutant forms like ΉΡΑΚΛΗΣ {Herakles} to Hercules, Odysseus to
Ulixes or Ulysses, maybe above all Zeus πάτηρ like Jupiter— one, the same,

1. the same, yet owned by each contrary other, each with its own spin: Hellenic
   line from ever-so-great great grandpa Zeus via Io’s touchy progeny from
   Egypt back to Greece, remigrant, Argive gentles, Pelops’ boys— Agamemnon,
   Menelaus— gone to claim Zeusdaughter Helen back from Ilium destroyed.
   Whilst Roman
   lineage descends from Jupiter via his Titan aunt Dione, then their daughter,
   Venus—smitten to mix with Trojan lord Anchises—bore Aeneas, name
   foreshadowing ‘pain’ but ‘claim.’ His son Iulus followed by, give or take
   four centuries, Ilia named for Ilion, jailed by wicked uncle, loved, unlocked by
   Mars (of Jupiter son with wife & sister Juno for once ), Ilia bore twin sons,
   wolf-nursed, but Remus killed by Romulus —his ρωμη naming Rome
   [email protected] 15
   , Myths, from primordial brother murder. style Roman nature
   all too, e.g. typically replete with rape—first Mars on Ilia, next their
   offspring’s new foundation, migrant, fugitive men themselves in hope of
   theirs, conniving, snatchingwomen—daughters, wives of upland neighbors:
   first constraining, quick exchanging, each another owning. future mothers,
   weaving common weal for war & work, migrating women’s crafts for flax &
   wool, extracting, drawing, pulling fibers, carding, rinsing, teasing strands to
   twist on spindles, spinning yarns to hang as orders, upright lines on looming
   frames, primordial warp before inserting cross line urgent woof for weaving
   woolen or linen cloth for clothing, togas, tunics: artful crafting via metaphor
   transferred to order forum, senate, fold, & field for farm & warfare: ergo
   ordo ‘line, warp, row, rank, kind’ vies with ΛΟΓΟΣ (logos). ‘count, recount,
   account,’ owning the Mediterranean. mare nostrum ‘sea our own?’
   16
   Dispertiii viri, dispertiti ordines {Forced apart men, forced apart ranks}
   Called together by rows & ranks from farm & forum Roman legendary
   legions, draftees othered owning other neighbor Latins, Oscans,
   finally touching Italy’s lower reache Hellenes, heard the further
   call from over Cyclops’ straits, three-cornered Sicily held by Argives
   south east Syracuse. but Palermo northwest held by Asian migrants ruling
   Libya Carthage reaching far as Cartagena, Barcelona, Empordá.
   Roman consuls ordering legions called, contriving linen sails past
   Sicily rounding Mediterranean margins —Africa’s stretched north border,
   Europa’s Asia, east to conquer Argive kingdoms, westward. northward terra,
   tierra, terroir up through Europe (struprum, taxes, thousands killed or
   trafficked buying factions, crossing Rubicon claiming power at Rome). still
   up to England, where Rome left such coin as Chester, miles, cheap, wall.
   [email protected]
   17
   Latin ‘Cl a s s i cs’ links to verbs
   ‘to call, pick, order, draft’ An early king
   called men to classes: ‘callings, legions, drafts.’
   When calls or classes differed, ‘classic’ came
   to mean not merely ‘called’ but called in order
   marked by values down from first, thus ‘classic‘
   migrates up from merely ‘called‘ to ‘first, called, classy ‘
   hence priority, privilege, prime. ‘first class.’
   Advancing, othering, owning southward Romans
   saw that Sicily called for sailing—linens
   hoist on boats: that called for special drafts,
   hence classis, ‘naval call or legion, fleet.’
   To call said fleet to arms the toot & tooting
   horn both called ‘the classic,’ meaning ‘of the fleet.’
   C.L root
   meaning ‘call, pick,
   summon, draft’
   So Class =
   ‘ones called’ &
   Classical = just
   classed, BUT in
   order picked,
   So First call = best
   Hence first class

classy
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18
Beyond the call to sail to Cyclops’ Sicily, cruise to quarrel with Carthage
(toot, row, ram), the root for sounding ‒stem CL‒ could likewise muster
other kinds of calls, as figuring still where English usesl
Latin relics: verbs—acclaim, declaim, exclaim, reclaim—& verbal
stems in nouns like proclamation, reclamation, exclamation {!}:
likewise other semantic forum livestock‒ clarity, clarify, clarification, clarion like that naval toot, & cousins cognate clearly,
clear, besides own Spanish claro. Add with cognate compass ‘council’
tying together CON with CiL that migrates CaL exchanging vowels so
claiming ‘council’ roughly meaning ‘together call., where Roughly Etymological Meaning (REM) gets urgent force regarding current calls to
reconcile. with re- ‘again, back,’ making ‘reconcile’ via REM mean ‘call
together back again’: in our own English language forum Latin
migrates still the claim of murdered brother’s call from clamorous quarrels.
C.L ‘call’:
CLassic
CLangor
CLamor
acCLaim
declaim
proCLaim
reCLame
couCiL
reconCiLe
[email protected]
19
In fine, to calls for other than Mediterranean
ownership, ‘Cl a s s i cs’ moots its own exchange
with classic craft owned now by Caribbean—
ranked colony once, now ranked a classic range.
Forced emigration from Africa, slaves transported,
othered & owned along Roman lines—dark plight
by means of mastering craft reported,
owns classic rank renewing mythic light.
With Omeros Walcott migrates epic home,
lofts once colonial edge to classic height
from which reordering epic Greece & Rome
knows human hurt via mythopoeic sight.
No matter which sea—human troubled—call,
frail craft sets sail: ever classic—risking all.
[email protected]
[email protected] 20
Whilst Walcott’s classic crosses Atlantic, Caribbean,
Aftrican. even Irish hurt migration, pain
for home, reweaving epic plots —his island Helen
madras turbaned sought by empires & his alter
ego Catherine hurts for death in snow of Sioux,
our class via RfR will study other craft than
epic genre—kinds of ode, psalm, prophecy, hymn:
another classic now to own for this known time,
While reading RfR, we’ll first begin to remark
in text, to index items, note in margins, scribble.
scrawl to a pad or an on-screen file each day for a diaryjournal in order that reading onward, indexed items
call you back to compare / contrast, infer from changes
cluing sense via claimants, plot points, urged agendas.
21
In journals draw from texts your items
indexed. quickly marked in rough form.
From this compost draw & order
weaving your own new texts, entertaining others, still no less yourselves..
RfR now Where? “The Hill.” What?
Why?. “Climb.” Who? When? “We,” including
not alone Amanda—{Latin
verb form ‘must be loved,’ from AMOR
topping ROMA}—likewise us now:
all Miranda too admiring,
likewise Maya message in..
[email protected]