Lane-switching and Jughandles in Contemporary Interpretations of Roman Poetry

My paper answers two of the conference organizer's questions: the first, what are you working on, by mentioning some difficulties I am having with my current research, the important related question, how does your approach differ from what it was ten years ago, by discussing some problems of interpretation that demonstrate a need to connect formal and textual with historical and material aspects of Roman culture. My six examples feature (1) the need for interdisciplinary discussion, (2) the significance of an intertextuality that is not demonstrably "causative," (3) the importance of taking seriously "literal" indications such as location and (4) architecture, (5 and 6) the use of deictics and numerology as pointers to, respectively, the economy of patronage and the agenda of Augustan ideology.