Engendering Grace: Charis and Venustas in Greco-Roman Poetry
Location
Room 207, Schewel Hall
Access Type
Open Access
Entry Number
101
Start Date
4-5-2023 11:00 AM
End Date
4-5-2023 11:15 AM
College
Lynchburg College of Arts and Sciences
Department
History
Keywords
gender, ancient greece, latin, linguistics, history, grace
Abstract
The concepts of grace, physical beauty, linguistic charm, and mental wit are fairly distinct in modern terms. In antiquity, however, these ideas were closely associated. One way to understand their connection is to recognize their common propensity for causing a sort of giddy pleasure. In Ancient Greek, this pleasure—the feeling and the source of it—were called χαρίς (charis). Charis had a wide range of applications associated with various pleasures, but at its core it was a moral ideal connected with reciprocity and acknowledging sources of pleasure with pleasurable returns. Charis was not an explicitly gendered term, but it was tacitly gendered by what was deemed pleasurable by a subject, often male, and desirable in an object, often female. This process of tacit gendering was reinforced in Latin poetry, particularly in Catullus. Inspired by Sappho, Catullus uses the Latin venustas in similar ways to Sappho’s charis. A case study of Catullus’ poems containing venustas offers insight into how he used the tacit gendering of venustas to subvert gender expectations in his and Lesbia’s poetic personas. In particular, it reveals that Catullus’ venustas is a more heavily gendered counterpart of Sappho’s charis, which he employs in poem 86 as part of a process of “womanufacture” aimed at depicting a masculinized Lesbia.
Faculty Mentor(s)
Dr. Elza Tiner Dr. Christie Vogler Dr. Brian Crim
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Engendering Grace: Charis and Venustas in Greco-Roman Poetry
Room 207, Schewel Hall
The concepts of grace, physical beauty, linguistic charm, and mental wit are fairly distinct in modern terms. In antiquity, however, these ideas were closely associated. One way to understand their connection is to recognize their common propensity for causing a sort of giddy pleasure. In Ancient Greek, this pleasure—the feeling and the source of it—were called χαρίς (charis). Charis had a wide range of applications associated with various pleasures, but at its core it was a moral ideal connected with reciprocity and acknowledging sources of pleasure with pleasurable returns. Charis was not an explicitly gendered term, but it was tacitly gendered by what was deemed pleasurable by a subject, often male, and desirable in an object, often female. This process of tacit gendering was reinforced in Latin poetry, particularly in Catullus. Inspired by Sappho, Catullus uses the Latin venustas in similar ways to Sappho’s charis. A case study of Catullus’ poems containing venustas offers insight into how he used the tacit gendering of venustas to subvert gender expectations in his and Lesbia’s poetic personas. In particular, it reveals that Catullus’ venustas is a more heavily gendered counterpart of Sappho’s charis, which he employs in poem 86 as part of a process of “womanufacture” aimed at depicting a masculinized Lesbia.