Veneration of Venus in Augustan love poetry as a metaphor of total devotion

Bibliographic Data

ID4372277
AuthorsJörg Rüpke (0000-0002-4173-9587, Max Weber Centre for Advanced Social and Cultural Studies of the University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume53
Issue1
Pages68-86
Publication date2023-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligion (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0048-721X • E-ISSN: 1096-1151
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0048721x.2022.2150404
OpenAlexW4310385535
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited53

Poets like Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid spoke about emotional and explicitly sexual relationships with Venus in a language mobilising towards radical ways to live. Criminal actions from prayer attacks to the use of poisons were considered and imagined as being performed in this literature. Whereas the phenomenon of militia amoris – sexual relationships of men to women framed as military service – has been studied extensively, it has never been analysed in a framework of the History of Religion. Given the widespread reception of such texts and the rise of concepts of militia Christiana in the later Empire, a closer look at these texts is necessary. Focusing on Horace, Odes 4.1, this article inquires into his construction of the interplay of total devotion and emotions, which lies at the basis of performances of this text, and into the coherency of the religious framework developed in the poetry

Art · Literature · Metaphor · Poetry · Prayer · Theology · Veneration · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Classical Antiquity Studies · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious studies

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