Name: LUIZA HELENA RODRIGUES DE ABREU CARVALHO

Publication date: 26/01/2023
Advisor:

Name	Role
LENI RIBEIRO LEITE	Advisor *

Examining board:

Name	Role
LENI RIBEIRO LEITE	Advisor *
RAIMUNDO NONATO BARBOSA DE CARVALHO	Internal Examiner *

Summary: This thesis identifies the elements of permanence of Statius’ Siluae (1st century) in Angelo
Poliziano’s Silvae (15th century) and in Johannes Vaccaeus’ Sylva Parrhisia (16th century).
Statius’ Siluae are a collection of thirty-two lyrical and occasional poems, mostly laudatory,
that were lost during most of the Middle Ages, but were rediscovered in the beginning of the
fiftheenth century by Poggio Bracciolini. The reception of these poems, during the
Renaissance and other phases of Modernity, took place in different ways, when they took on,
among others, the didactic-pedagogical function, especially for the poet-teachers, whose
poems are corpora of this analysis. Considering this generic update, this thesis proposes the
Siluae were received in the Renaissance in order to highlight the instructive use of poetics.
The hypothesis defended is that the educational aspect of modern Siluae is deeply related to
Statius’ lyric since its genesis, because the ancient poems not only are composed from the
precepts of the epideictic genre – a rhetorical genre that encompasses praise and blame and
whose main function is delighting the listeners –, but also share elements and functions of
another rhetorical genre, the deliberative one – that encompasses the advising and whose main
function is teaching. The discussion is based on considerations concerning the epideictic and
deliberative genres present in the Ancient and Medieval Rhetoric manuals, and on the
Classical Reception. In order to conciliate the theoretical option and the corpus, the analysis
employs concepts of Discourse Analysis, such as positioning, discursive field and éthos. The
thesis seeks to show that the relationship between the deliberative and epideictic genres and
their functions can be found in ancient and medieval manuals even if subtly. Therefore, the
thesis concludes that the praises found in Statius´ Silvae, above all, instructive when they
indicate the standards to be followed in the society in which they circulated. Because of that,
the authors of later periods, such as Poliziano and Vaccaeus, observing these educational
aspects in the ancient siluae, were able to emulate this aspect in their respective poetic
productions in Modernity.
Keywords: Rhetoric—Europe, Occident—Manuals. Classical reception—Renaissance—
Literature—until 1500. Lyrical poetry, Latin (ancient and modern)—Silvae—Comparative
Literature. Statius, P. Papinius (Publius Papinius), ca 50 – ca 96. Ambrogini, Angelo de
Monte Puleciano (Poliziano), 1454 - 1494. Vaccaeus, Johannes of Murcia (Castellanus), ca
1496 - ca 1524.

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