Thursday, March 5, 2026

The Ancient World Online: Lector in poematis: The reader in Greco-Latin poetry

This book is the
result of an international symposium held in 2021 at the Faculty of Arts
of Sorbonne University, on the tenth anniversary of the death of
Professor Jacqueline Dangel. It brought together specialists in Greek
and Latin literature to discuss the  representations of the reader in
ancient poetry.

The various articles collected here focus on the
presence of the reader and his relationship with the author, as well as
their impact on the text itself, questioning the relevance to ancient
corpora of certain concepts defined by Umberto Eco and the Constance
school. They explore the multiple faces of the “empirical reader”, the
inscription in the poem of the confrontation between this empirical
reader and the “model reader”, the dialectic that governs the
relationship between the poet and the reader when the latter is involved
by the former in the creative process, the particular position of the
reader in performances (theatre, recitations) which, for the Ancients,
constitute forms of reading, and the status of the female reader, who
may be represented by a male or female author. These questions challenge
theories of reception of works borrowed from various chronocultural
eras, from archaic and classical Greece to late Latin culture, including
classical and imperial Latin culture, and a glimpse into neo-Latin
culture.

Publisher:
MOM Éditions

Place of publication:

Lyon

Published on OpenEdition Books:
November 20, 2025

Digital ISBN: 978-2-35668-147-8

DOI: 10.4000/156bg Series:

Literature & Linguistics


| 8

Year of publication: 2025

ISBN (Print version): 978-2-35668-151-5

Number of pages: 390

First part. From the singular recipient to the anonymous reader: the multiple faces of the empirical reader

Second part. From thestupid reader au learned reader : the quest for the ideal reader

Third part. The dialectic of poet and reader

Fourth part. When the reader is also a spectator. Writings and readers in Greek tragedy

Thomas A. Schmitz

A reader on a boat

THEFrogs of Aristophanes and the beginning of the literary canon in Greece

Fifth part. Reading and gender


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