Doctiloquus" by Sidonius Apollinaris: Word as a Social Action

The aim of this article is to identify Sidonius's intentions which lay behind the use of rare lexemes in his works. An example of the lexemes is the term "doctiloquus". This use of the term in the texts of Sidonius is connected with a particular episode in his biography. To achieve this aim, the etymology, origin and meaning of the term are given in the article; the semantic context of the use of the term by Sidonius Apollinaris is described; synonymous terms (such as "doctisonus", "dulciloquus", "dulcisonus") and their meanings are found in Sidonius's texts; the historical and biographical background of the use of the lexeme "doctiloquus" and others is determined. Methods of H.-G. Gadamer's hermeneutic interpretation, comparative analysis, the principle of historicism and elements of the biographical approach are used to analyze the subject. The interpretation of the texts is based on the principles of hermeneutic analysis of the source proposed by I.N. Danilevsky. The author's position analysis (W. Goffart) and the interpretations of the personality and works of Sidonius Apollinaris by J. Harris and R. Mathisen are also used. Sidonius used the word "doctiloquus" only twice. Both cases are related to his visit to Narbonne. The same can be said about the term "doctisonus", which appeared in the epithalamium for the wedding of the daughter of the leading Narbonne aristocrat Magnus. So, the appearance of these words in Sido-nius's thesaurus was connected with his visit to Narbonne as a result of his communication and acquaintances. Vice versa, the word's disappearance could be explained by the fact that it was not incorporated into the actual personal discourse. Sidonius's trip to Narbonne, his acquaintance with its aristocratic circles, connections that lined up thanks to this acquaintance - all this took place shortly before 462 when the city came under the control of the Visigoths. Sidonius's audience was the Narbonne elite. For this elite, Sidonius wanted to emphasize his unique knowledge of archaic words and phrases and, thus, his importance. At the beginning of the 460s, he was in disgrace, since he previously supported the Lyon group of provincial aristocracy, which opposed Emperor Majorian in 458. At the time, Sidonius was young enough (c. 30-35) and ambitious; under the circumstances he needed a strong patronage to realize his ambitions. The author of the article believes that the use of complex, archaic and semantically overloaded terms in Sidonius's poems was intended to present him to the readers as a person who is valuable as an erudite in the Latin grammar so that he could be patronized to move up the career ladder.

Keywords

Authors

References