Lucia Floridi, Selene and the sleeping beauty. Intervisual allusions in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Gods 19

Streszczenie:

In this paper, I will show how the visual dimension comes into play in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Gods, by resorting to a notion that has recently been introduced into Classical studies: intervisuality. Conceived of as a twin notion to intertextuality, when applied to (Classical) literature, intervisuality is, in its strictest sense, the allusion of a literary work to an image, be that a specific iconographic referent or, more generally, a schema.

I will analyse some intervisual allusions in D.Deor. 19, devoted to the story of Selene and Endymion, and I will show how Lucian subtly appeals to the visual memory of his audience in contexts where not only are no artistic descriptions provided, but no mention of artworks is made at all. The visual dimension intrudes into the text without any explicit acknowledgment: “il piacere dell’agnizione” [“the pleasure of recognition”] in detecting a visual allusion – to borrow the famous expression used by Giorgio Pasquali with reference to the recognition of intertextual allusions on the reader’s part – is entirely left to the audience.

I will also remark that, although some key details are explicitly evoked, in other respects the visualisation is left free. Listeners could variously integrate, into their mental paintings, visual details drawn from their direct experience of the subject. Lucian’s description is not detailed and precise, but allusive and evocative. I will conclude by suggesting an explanation for Lucian’s descriptive elusiveness, which considers both the mechanisms of intervisuality and, more generally, the socio-historical context of the Second Sophistic.