In The Space That Remains, Aaron Pelttari offers the first systematic study of the major fourth-century poets since Michael Roberts foundational The Jeweled Style. It is the first book to give equal attention to both Christian and Pagan poetry and the first to take seriously the issue of readership.
As Pelttari shows, the period marked a turn towards forms of writing that privilege the readers active involvement in shaping the meaning of the text. In the poetry of Ausonius, Claudian, and Prudentius we can see the increasing importance of distinctions between old and new, ancient and modern, forgotten and remembered. The strange traditionalism and verbalism of the day often concealed a desire for immediacy and presence. We can see these changes most clearly in the expectations placed upon readers. The space that remains is the space that the reader comes to inhabit, as would increasingly become the case in the literature of the Latin Middle Ages.
Introduction: Late Antique Poetry and the Figure of the Reader1. Text, Interpretation, and Authority2. Prefaces and the Reader's Approach to the Text3. Open Texts and Layers of Meaning4. The Presence of the Reader: Allusion in Late AntiquityConclusion<
