Inconsistency in Roman Epic (review)

James O'Hara's Inconsistency in Roman Epic, part of the "Roman Literature and its Contexts" series published by Cambridge University Press, consists of an introduction, a first chapter that selectively deals with issues of inconsistency in Greek literature, and then five chapters on Latin epic poetry that cover Catullus 64, Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, and Lucan. Competing mythological accounts, misinformed narrators or speakers, and chronological distortions constitute the majority of what O'Hara sees as inconsistencies, and rather than viewing these issues as the product of unfinished or unrevised texts, he argues that such features are part of the fabric of Roman epic. O'Hara recognizes that his topic is not a new one, but the originality of this work lies in its scope: though the book is not intended to be comprehensive, it successfully argues for the thematic and intepretative importance of inconsistency in a range of Roman hexameter poetry.

Many critics today are likely comfortable with O'Hara's conception of inconsistency, but his synthetic approach attempts to show that it is not a peculiarly recent preoccupation to recognize that ancient literature may contain multiple perspectives that challenge-or even defy-a sense of unity. In this regard, the chapter on the Greeks is particularly useful: O'Hara reminds us that Plato's Protagoras, for example, is concerned with inconsistencies in Simonides' poetry, and that the Platonic dialogues themselves are often strategically disjointed. Other examples of classical Greek literature and modern criticism of it well demonstrate that it was not simply the Alexandrians who developed a literature with multiple perspectives and realities. Given the oral nature of the Homeric poems, a special set of problems with inconsistencies arises, but O'Hara, well-versed in criticism of all periods, incorporates the arguments of numerous scholars to illustrate that western literature begins both with a marked interest in what might be called focalisation-particularly when it comes to the way divine speakers represent the world-and with narrative practices that may raise more questions than they answer.

One also gains the sense in this first chapter that O'Hara's argument is motivated by overly periodic views that modern critics have of literary history (e.g., ". . . readers of Alexandrian and Roman poetry need to know that allusion to varying and often incompatible versions is common in Homer, Pindar, and tragedy" (14); "perhaps because the book deals mainly with Greek texts, . . . few Latinists have paid any attention either to his pages on Latin poetry or to his general argument" [22]), and it is a great virtue of his study that a coherent picture of one technique of Latin epic emerges. But even if scholars are attentive to diachronic strategies in ancient literature, I suspect some will still not be persuaded to abandon tactics such as textual emendation and biographical criticism to cope with contradictory ideas that are found in Roman poetry. For instance, anyone who teaches the Aeneid runs into the kind of student who, in the midst of a discussion about some incongruity or another, raises the issue of Vergil's death in order to "explain" away the problem. O'Hara's brief consideration of the completed and polished Georgics helpfully demonstrates that such inconsistency cannot always be attributed to biography (83-85). But even this sort of argument is not all that new. Indeed, O'Hara argues against critics who attempt to efface inconsistencies in the Georgics-to say nothing of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura-by simply expunging the "troublesome" verses (e.g., 57, 83). While this approach implicitly recognizes inconsistencies, such radical erasures have generally not convinced many and O'Hara may spend too much time arguing the case. Nonetheless, by situating inconsistency within a broader tradition and thus raising conceptual objections to "pragmatic" readings, O'Hara makes a strong argument for trying to come to grips with the poetry that we have rather than what we think would make for a unified poem.

O'Hara's chapter on Catullus 64 is highly important in that...