English, Department of
Department of English: Faculty Publications
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
1968
Citation
Mediaeval Studies (1968) 30: 119-133
Editor: T. P. McLaughlin
Published by the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, Canada
Abstract
The Altercatio Phyllidis et Florae is an Ovidian satire: a poem which ridicules certain mistaken notions of the meaning of the office of clerk by putting them in a context in which they become justifications for love. Such satire is possible in any age which, like Augustan Rome or twelfth-century France, defines a person according to his office and thereby can see the absurdity of making these definitions into reasons for praising a person's aptness for love. If Ovid is the inventor of this form of satire, he was followed, as we can see from the Altercatio, by poets who were capable of building on his invention satires as witty as those of their master.
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Comments
Copyright 1968, Robert S. Haller. Used by permission