The history of Rome and elegiac form in Propertius fourth book

• Grant number: 24/23359-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: August 01, 2025
• End date: April 30, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Classical Languages
• Principal Investigator: Paulo Sérgio de Vasconcellos
• Grantee: Letícia Rodrigues Ferreira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project aims to observe the construction of the discourse and historical narrative of Rome and the elegiac genre, with the expectation of also studying the dynamics between non-absolute categories in the fourth book of Propertius. After producing at least three books of mostly erotic elegiac poetry, the volume emerges with a generic debate of explicit presentation of the Kalimachean etiological elegy, his new poetic direction. Given the change in the genre practiced, the themes of his new poetry are different: the etiology of Rome. In other words, there is a direct correlation between generic (especially elegiac) and historical Propercian investigations. Furthermore, with the death of Tibulus and the contributions of Ovid, Propertius needed to seek a new path. He chooses the path of narrating the story of the elegiac genre, which is not yet well established. The poems, however, have been divided dichotomously, that is, always with two poles opposing categories such as past vs. present, hexameter vs. pentameter, elegy vs. epic, female vs. male and etiology vs. male eroticism. This research also attempts to understand how these opposites are not exact and present a continuum between them, which points to other mixed categories, such as the transgenderities in book 4. The purpose of the study is, in this way, to read the poems understanding the relations between them and the subversion of the poles previously proposed by the bibliography, that is, of the (dis)continuities presented by this poetry, being past vs. gift from Rome the most important among them.