Veriora Nomina Camenarum: Erudition, Uncertainty, and Cognitive Displacement as Poetic Strategies in Sidonius Apollinaris

This essay examines a set of poetic strategies that create a peculiar tension in Sidonius's poetry. While displaying profound erudition, several poems skillfully undermine the impression that they are the predictable products of carefully mastered methods of composition. They self-consciously displace reader expectations by posing as something they are not, by referring to poems that were never written, or by obliquely delivering what they proclaim to reject. The first part discusses the programmatic statements at the beginning and at the end of Carm. 9 (the poem dedicated to Magnus Felix which opens the collection of the Carmina minora). The second and third parts examine the rhetorical structure of the recusationes in Carm. 9 as well as in Carm. 12 (a poem addressed to Catullinus), and the last part addresses Sidonius satirographus, mentioned in Ep. 1.11.8. This essay argues that the poetic strategies examined here do not aim to marginalize the poetry's content nor betray an extreme pessimism regarding poetry's ability to express something. Rather, they contribute to the creation of a poetic stance that goes beyond erudition and rational method and allows the reader to be surprised and unsettled.