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Chapter 1 - Two Scenes from the Life of an Artist

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2019

Christopher Whitton
Christopher Whitton
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

Chapter 1 serves as a prelude, exemplifying argument and method with two brief tableaux. Epistles 1.6 is Pliny’s first letter to Tacitus, and his first self-portrait as leisured man of study, writing in the woods of his Umbrian estate. Epistles 9.36 is a late, intimate account of Pliny’s daily routine at the same villa. Each letter engages closely with Institutio 10.3, Quintilian’s chapter on how to write. Quintilian rejects dictation, recommends solitude and dismisses claims that the countryside is the best place for composition. With a ‘divided imitation’, Pliny offers an intricate and subtle reply on all three points, so inscribing the Institutio into two cardinal letters which cut to the heart of the Epistles as autobiography and as minutely crafted text.

Keywords

Pliny the YoungerEpistlesLettersQuintilianInstitutio oratoriaintertextualitydictation
Type
Chapter
Information
The Arts of Imitation in Latin Prose
Pliny's <I>Epistles</I>/Quintilian in Brief
 , pp. 1 - 19
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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