classical scholarship, Latin poetry, Horatius Flaccus, Quintus, Catullus, Gaius Valerius, irony, sincerity
Abstract
This paper regards sincerity as the opposite of irony. The impression that a poem is sincere needs the supposition of an intention that coincides with the meaning of the text, while irony is traditionally described as a tension between intention and literal meaning. Although the concept of sincerity, which is very probably the heritage of Romanticism, has been discredited by the 20th century theory of literature, it still plays a rather important role in classical scholarship. After analyses of scholarly texts discussing the sincere or ironic nature of Catullus’ and Horace’s poetry, the paper goes on to investigate whether characteristic rhetorical formations exist that make a text able to be read as sincere. Although some such features can be described, sincerity as well as irony requires the reader’s co-operation.
