Abstract
This monumental tome does more than merely distil and deliver insights into the workings of fama; it takes the reader on a gripping journey through the highways and byways of her literary (and eventually artistic) representation. Her character, her power, her stable and shifting characteristics, are encountered from close to the sources, through a web of words that straddles representation and reality. This is an eloquent book that shows, not just tells, its conclusions. If the presentation of material is slightly sprawling, this is because it shows even more than it can possibly conclude, and it respects the instability of its subject without overly-tidying it. Its magisterial quality lies in its combination of close literary readings with a keen attentiveness to the systematic, historical and literary relationships between different depictions of fama. Furthermore, its chosen topic is one of extraordinary, and neglected, significance. Fama is the Latin word from which we derive ‘fame’, but in Latin it includes ‘rumour’, ‘report’ and ‘tradition’. All these are things that are said (fari – to speak). Native Latin speakers liked to relate it to fatum – ‘that which has been said’, indeed, the pronouncement of ‘fate’. Hardie’s substantial opening chapter gives the fullest abstract analysis of fama in a book that is otherwise dedicated to careful case studies. He argues that the representation of fama is structured around contrasting pairs, of which he lists seventeen principal categories, some of which have sub-divisions as well. They include things like ‘fame vs. blame’; ‘fame vs. shame’; ‘fate vs. fama’; ‘one vs. many’; ‘fama-as-fame’ vs. fama-as-rumour or –gossip’; ‘facta and fama’. He draws attention to the close relationship between concern with fama and concern with the self; he highlights critiques of fama, and observes that fama episodes in literature tend to organise themselves into plots, with opening and closural sequences.
Author of already classic books on Vergil (as well as on Ovid and Lucretius), Hardie’s interest in fama focuses on Vergil’s personification of her, together with her antecedents and descendants. Vergil’s monstrous figure is small at first, but soon raises herself to the breezes; she walks on the ground, and hides her head in the clouds. She is a monstrum horrendum, huge, who has as many feathers on her body as she has watchful eyes beneath; even so many are her tongues; the same number of mouths make noise; just so many ears she pricks up (Aeneid 4.173-97). She is the most elaborate and developed personification allegory in the Aeneid, and Hardie argues that far from being a mere ‘excrescence’ of ornamentation, she is central to the business of the epic poet, whose own work is in words. (The same, by an implication never stated, might be said of her pertinence to the literary critic and writer of books.)
Hardie’s investigation of fama begins with precedents and successors in poetry, especially epic poetry. The main authors discussed here are Hesiod, Homer, Vergil and Ovid. He then turns to historians, Livy and Tacitus, adding consideration of two of Tacitus’ contemporaries, Pliny the Younger and Martial. At this point, 330 pages in, the book changes tack slightly, offering a chapter of thematic reflection on ‘the love of fame and the fame of love’, supported by readings largely drawn from texts already discussed, but concluding with Dante and Petrarch. The next chapter continues to examine the dichotomies of fama, turning from love and desire to blame and envy, and placing Spenser in the spotlight. Thereafter, Hardie turns to the ‘greatest shift in the ideology of fama,’ which arises through the influence of Christian perspectives on fame and glory. Perhaps it is a shame that he did not begin this topic with earlier sources; Tertullian quotes Vergil’s description of fama in his Apology, around 200 AD; φήμη appears only briefly in the gospels (Matt 9:26; Luke 4:14), but the theme of ‘spreading the word’ is significant (e.g. Matt 10:27 cf. Aen. 4.186; 1 Thess 1:8), as is the ambiguity of δόξα (glory/reputation), particularly in John. The development of these themes in the earliest sources could usefully be compared with the literary tradition of fama. Hardie’s first text for ‘the Christian reevaluation of pagan fame’ is a fleetingly discussed fourth century verse narrative of the gospels, but his focus is on Renaissance, neoclassical epic. Subsequent chapters explore Petrarch, Shakespeare, Jonson, Milton, Chaucer and Pope. Shakespeare and Jonson are studied with chiefly political interest; Chaucer and Pope are intended as an epilogue picking up themes of the book; theirs are the first works discussed that use the word ‘fame’ in their titles. A richly-illustrated closing chapter discusses visual depictions of fama, in comparison with the textual sources.
Hardie resists grand narratives, professing that the sources are marked by as many continuities as discontinuities. Nonetheless, he does regard Christianity as the most significant turning point in the history of this particular classical tradition. Although primarily a literary study by a classical scholar of poetry, this book touches the quick of a theme that resounds loudly in contemporary public life, and whose centrality to human beings, as creatures of speech and of society, is immortal. Fama, according to Vergil, was a daughter of Earth, and the last-born of the race of the giants. Hardie’s giant opus measures up to her prominence in literature and life; it deserves to be met with more kindly renown.