Análisis del proemio del De raptu Helenaede Draconcio: Inserción genérica y programa poético

Abstract

Si bien el objetivo puntual de nuestro trabajo consiste en proponer una nueva lectura del proemio del De raptu Helenae, escrito por Blosio Emilio Draconcio, antes de abordar concretamente su análisis, consideramos necesario establecer las coordenadas genéricas e ideológicas en las que esa obra se inscribe; para ello, tomaremos como referencia dos aspectos fundamentales: los aportes formales del alejandrinismo en la estructuración de los proemios épicos y la conversión de los componentes cristalizados del género por parte de los primeros autores cristianos que lo abordaron.

The main purpose of this research is proposing a new critical approach to the reading of the poem entitled De Raptu Helenae, which was written by Blossius Aemilius Dracontius in the 5th Century. We will particularly examine its exordium, in order to suggest that there is a strong formal connection between the compositional technique of centonal poems’ authors and certain narrative strategies adopted by Dracontius when he inscribes his text in the epic proemium’s tradition. Once established that the invocation of Homer and Virgil substitutes the conventional request to the Muse for inspiration, we shall demonstrate that the apparent praise constitutes actually a veiled attack to those pagan authors, structured by the semantic inversion of different quotes and allusion taken from Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Prudentius and Ausonius, among other poets.