For citation:
Semyonov V. B. “Ekphrasis of the Constellations” in J. Metham’s romance Amoryus and Cleopes (15th century). Izvestiya of Saratov University. Philology. Journalism, 2025, vol. 25, iss. 2, pp. 187-194. DOI: 10.18500/1817-7115-2025-25-2-187-194, EDN: MCHAHG
“Ekphrasis of the Constellations” in J. Metham’s romance Amoryus and Cleopes (15th century)
In this paper, the research material is a fragment of the chivalric romance Amoryus and Cleopes by John Metham, an English scientist and poet of the mid-15th century. The object of the study was Metham’s description of the constellations of the Northern and Southern Hemi spheres, contained in the text and considered as ekphrasis. If the very perception of the firmament by the ancients represented ekphrasis of the first degree, in which individual heroes and parts of the plots of ancient myths as products of verbal art were projected onto the sky and visualized by assigning them to individual groups of stars, then the description of the indicated constellations by Metham’s romance narrator was a return from the visual image to the verbal one, therefore, an ekphrasis of the second degree. The main research methods were textual and intertextual analyses. The purpose of the study was to identify the features of the mentioned ekphrasis. As a result of inspecting a fragment of the romance, the following conclusions were made regarding the features of the constellations’ descriptions: the author of the opus focused on reproducing the information related to the mythological, rather than the mathematical component of astronomy, and therefore he did not refer to such famous astronomers-geometricians as Ptolemy and Hipparchus, and at the same time he was more interested in how the philosophers and poets of Antiquity perceived celestial phenomena; within the framework of the characteristic medieval overuse of rhetorical devices, especially such ones as amplification, which help to create the effect of learned, elevated style through loquacity, Metham frequently uses different names for the same constellations, and thus introduces allusions to different myths. The writer did not mechanically copy stereotypical mythological and astronomical information, but supplemented and developed it; his searches in the fi eld of form in this case influenced the content of the fragment. Finally, the main identified feature was the desire to subordinate the “ekphrasis of the constellations” to the task of creating a unified astronomical-mythological system.
-
Craig H. The Works of John Metham, Including The Romance of Amoryus and Cleopes. London: The Early English Text Society, 1916. 184 p.
-
Семенов В. Б. Полижанровая структура поэмы Дж. Метэма «Аморий и Клеопа» (1449) и бестиарные мотивы в «энциклопедическом» эпизоде её сюжета // Litera. 2023. № 12. С. 403–418. https://doi.org/10.25136/2409-8698.2023.12.69469 EDN: LRYIJV
-
Metham J. Amoryus and Cleopes / ed. by S. F. Page. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1999. 142 p.
-
Сакробоско И. О сфере // Средние века. 2020. Т. 81, № 3. С. 69–80. https://doi.org/10.7868/S0131878020030046 EDN: DRUXOI
-
Chalcidii V. C. Timaeus de Platonis translatus. Item ejusdem in eundem Commentarius. Ioannes Meursius recensuit, denuò edidit, & notas addidit. Lugduni Batauorum: Ex Officina Iusti Colsteri, 1617. 463 p.
-
Habel E. Die Exempla honestae vitae des Johannes de Garlandia, eine lateinische Poetik des 13. Jahrhunderts // Romanische Forschungen. 1911. Vol. 29. P. 131–154.
-
Eastwood B. S. Ordering the Heavens: Roman Astronomy and Cosmology in the Carolingian Renaissance. Leiden: Brill, 2007. 456 p. (Medieval and Early Modern Science, vol. 8). https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004161863.i-453
-
Гигин. Астрономия / пер. с лат., примеч. и коммент. А. И. Рубана. СПб.: Алетейя, 1997. 220 с. (Античная библиотека. Античная история).
-
Арат. Явления // Небо, наука, поэзия: Античные авторы о небесных светилах: об их именах, восходах, заходах и приметах погоды / пер. и коммент. А. А. Россиуса; под ред. Н. А. Федорова, П. В. Щеглова. М.: Изд-во МГУ, 1992. С. 24–61.
-
Эратосфен. Превращения в созвездия (Катастеризмы) // Небо, наука, поэзия: Античные авторы о небесных светилах: об их именах, восходах, заходах и приметах погоды / пер. и коммент. А. А. Россиуса; под ред. Н. А. Федорова, П. В. Щеглова. М.: Изд-во МГУ, 1992. С. 62–87.
-
Three Prose Versions of the Secreta Secretorum / ed. by R. Steele, T. Henderson. London: The Early English Text Society, 1898. 293 p.
-
Гроссетест Р. Сочинения / под общ. ред. А. М. Шишкова, К. П. Виноградова; пер. с лат. А. М. Шишкова [и др.]. М.: УРСС, 2003. 298 с. (Biblioteca Scholastica. Вып. 4).
-
Полибий. Всеобщая история: В сорока книгах : в 3 т. / пер. с древнегреч. Ф. Г. Мищенко. Т. I, кн. I–V. Изд. 2-е, испр. СПб.: Наука, 2005. 496 с. (Историческая библиотека).
-
Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона / под ред. И. Е. Андреевского. Т. 1а (Алтай – Арагвай). СПб.: Ф. А. Брокгауз, И. А. Ефрон, 1890. 951 с.
-
McCluskey S. C. Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 252 p.