Introspection and Engagement in Propertius: A Study of Book 3 by Jonathan Wallis (review)

This volume responds to two viewpoints on the change of tone and subject matter in Propertius' third book: either it is a testament to the poet's loss of interest in erotic subjects and Cynthia, culminating in the rejection of both in the final poem, or it celebrates a widening of scope from the restricted elegiac world of the first two books into a more public world. Wallis' argument to some extent reconciles these views, stating that Book 3 "offers a rearticulation of 'Cynthia' and—as this study hopes to show—repositions Cynthian poetry in an emergent Augustan social and literary context" (4). He sees Propertius 3 as an interrogation of both elegiac and Augustan values by a poet whose stance shares some similarities with that of "Augustus" yet maintains an independent view of virtue and Roman identity.

Wallis rightly devotes three of his nine chapters to studies of poems featuring fides, the most prominent virtue in Book 3 and elsewhere in the Propertian corpus. Each takes a slightly different approach: chapter 2 considers the poet's claim in elegy 3.6 that he wants honesty and sincerity in love, and what that means in the context of Propertian love elegy. Wallis concludes that the poem simultaneously affirms and undermines the honesty of both puella and poet. This conclusion could be taken further by taking into account how the poem builds on the pair's wrestling with fidelity and mistrust in Books 1 and 2. Chapter 4 considers elegy 3.12 and its introduction of a chaste young matrona, a character absent from previous Propertian elegy. Wallis reads this poem as a response to Horace Odes 3.7: Propertius refutes Horace's claims about the danger elegy presents to fides by celebrating the virtue in its most Augustus-approved form. Chapter 8, on elegy 3.20, concludes the extended discussion of fides. Wallis argues that this poem creates a rather specific definition of fidelity: faithfulness only matters when it is aimed at the Propertian narrator, and only as long as it is convenient for him. It calls into question what fides is, when it matters, and who can count on it, and lays bare the "seductive sincerity within the poet's declaration of fidelity" (200) while at the same time setting up the seriality and contingency of the lover-poet's faithfulness and foreshadowing the (alleged) end of Cynthia in 3.24.

The strongest chapter of the book is chapter 7, on 3.18, the lament for Marcellus. Wallis makes the vital point that writing more "public" poetry need not make a poet a tool of the regime: it can also make him a critic. Elegy 3.18 points to the transformation of Propertius' elegy in its complex engagement with Roman symbolism in Book 4, and Propertius' voice "remains notably individual, and elusively dissident in the best elegiac manner" (184). The chapter closes with the point that Propertius' elegy does not need to give up Amor to take on Roma. My one significant criticism is that Wallis underemphasizes how much the thematic mixing of Book 3 builds on Books 1 and 2. The progression of Propertius' poetry undoubtedly involves a move from mostly amatory to mostly public themes, but the public is already visible and significant even in Book 1, the most amatory of the collections.

Wallis has produced an important addition to the scholarship on Propertius' least-studied book, and his study should be of interest to anyone working on elegy, Augustan literature, or the Augustan era more broadly. He successfully articulates how Book 3 bridges the seemingly abrupt change in themes from the amatory in Books 1 and 2 to the public in Book 4. Propertius emerges as a critical reader of elegy, including his own, and of the "real world" of Roman conquests and politics–a reader who need not give up on one topic...