The emergence of the Dionysiaca in the fifth century ce had an immediate and profound effect on the literary climate of late antiquity. Though no late antique poet was ever again to attempt a work of such monumental ambition, successive generations of poets (Col-luthus and Christodorus, Pamprepius, Dioscorus and Musaeus, and others) show marked signs of Nonnian influence in terms of language and meter.
Corroborating evidence for Nonnus’ early popularity is a sixth-century ce papyrus fragment excavated in Egypt that preserves several books of the Dionysiaca (P. Berol. 10567). The breadth of his influence is suggested by the sixth-century ce poet and historian Agathias from Myrina, on the coast of Asia Minor, who quotes part of the proem of the Dionysiaca from memory (Histories 4.23.5). ‘‘The most influential Greek poet since Callimachus’’ (Cameron 1982: 227) continued to be read at Constantinople throughout the Middle Ages (see Lind 1978). A copy of the Dionysiaca was commissioned there by the thirteenth-century polymath and scholar Maximus Planudes. In January 1423 this manuscript (the celebrated Laurentianus) was acquired by the young Italian humanist, Francesco Filelfo, and transported to Florence, where it remains to this day. It was from a derivative version of this same manuscript that the first printed edition of the Dionysiaca was produced in Antwerp in 1569 by G. Falkenburg. Once established in the West, Nonnus continued to exercise an important creative influence on a long line of writers. Although the influence of the Dionysiaca on Milton’s Paradise Lost remains open to speculation, in the eighteenth century Nonnus was read and admired by Goethe and found an enthusiastic ‘‘patron’’ in the Italian Giovan Batista Marino, whose works of erotic mythology owe much to Nonnus’ epic. In nineteenth-century England, the Dionysiaca was championed by the eccentric novelist Thomas Love Peacock. His attempts to convert his friend Shelley to the charms of Nonnian poetry were not obviously successful, though it has recently been suggested that the Dionysiaca did indeed have a direct influence on Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound (see Shorrock 2001: 1-2 for details and further bibliography).
In 1903, the editor of Peacock’s novels, Richard Garnett, published a fictional account of the life of Nonnus that attempted to reconcile the poet’s supposed authorship of the ‘‘pagan’’ Dionysiaca and the ‘‘Christian’’ paraphrase of St John’s Gospel. In this amusing narrative Apollo encounters Nonnus within a week of his conversion to Christianity. When put to the test Nonnus reveals his true pagan spirit by refusing to destroy his copy of the Dionysiaca. In his contrite state he then decides to destroy his Paraphrase, but Apollo forbids it: ‘‘Thou shalt publish it. That shall be thy penance.’’ Just over a decade later, Nonnus’ influence is to be noted on one of the most famous of all modern Greek poets: C. P. Cavafy. His poem, ‘‘Refugees,’’ written in October 1914, enthuses about the language and imagery in the work of a fellow Alexandrian writer.
In the late twentieth century, Nonnus found his way into two different works of fiction. He appears in dramatized and unforgettable form in Theodore Zeldin’s 1988 novel Happiness and earns high praise in Roberto Calasso’s The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, published in the same year. Even higher praise is accorded by the fact that Calasso’s fictive reworking of Greek mythology owes a large debt to the narrative of the Dionysiaca. His successful imitation must count as the sincerest form of flattery (Shorrock 2003).
The enthusiastic ‘‘amateur’’ reception of Nonnus’ Dionysiaca contrasts sharply with the epic’s reception by ‘‘professional’’ critics. One critic has suggested that ‘‘the loss of Nonnus’ Dionysiaca would be no great cause for lamentation.’’ Although this view is extreme, it can hardly be regarded as heretical. The majority of critics who do engage with the Dionysiaca do not consider the text in its own right, but use it rather as a means to more ‘‘edifying’’ ends: it provides an extensive and invaluable mine of mythological detail, often unattested elsewhere; at the same time it serves as an important resource in the search for fragments of lost Hellenistic texts, rare specimens trapped in the plentiful amber of Nonnus’ poetry.
There are, however, signs of an emerging critical interest in the Dionysiaca as a literary and cultural artifact. Attempts are starting to be made to unpack the social, political, and cultural implications of Nonnus’ text (Chuvin 1990, 1991; Bowersock 1990, 1994), although much work remains to be done in this regard. An important collection of essays appeared in 1994 (Hopkinson 1994b), while 2001 saw the publication of the first English monograph devoted to the epic as a literary text (Shorrock 2001). A series of essays on Nonnus can also now be accessed via the World Wide Web (R. Newbold at Www. nonnus. adelaide. edu. au). Such increased interest has been facilitated and encouraged by the groundbreaking work of Vian and his indefatigable team of Bude editors, whose thirty-year project to provide a text, translation, and detailed commentary is now moving towards its magisterial conclusion.
World History
