Venus as Apollo: Poetology in Claudian’s Epithalamium of Palladius and Celerina

Abstract

In this paper, I study the poetics of Claudian’s Epithalamium of Palladius and Celerina. I am
mainly interested in the poem’s generic mixture (epithalamium, pastoral, love elegy, panegyric
poetry) and the revelation of the poet’s metapoetic self-consciousness. Through close
reading of the poem’s several passages, I am trying to demonstrate that Venus works as Apollo’s
Callimachus and that Hymenaeus is Claudian’s alter ego.

Key-words: Claudian, Epithalamium of Palladius and Celerina, Latin late antique poetry, generic mixture, metapoetic self-consciousness.