Truth and fiction in Servius' commentary on Virgil

Abstract

Tracing the grammatical, philosophical, and interpretive traditions that shaped his exegesis, this dissertation considers Servius’ critical approach to fiction in his commentaries on Virgil’s Aeneid, Eclogues, and Georgics (IV-V cent. CE). Servius’ interest results from the need to justify the presence of apparently unnecessary fabrications in texts that were central to late antique culture and education.

Three main approaches to literary fiction are identified. The first conceptualises the relationship between truth and fiction as a simple horizontal juxtaposition; the second consists in unravelling the truth concealed beneath fiction through ‘vertical interpretation’, i.e. allegorical, euhemeristic, or rationalising readings; the third is based on verisimilitude.

In the preface to the commentary on the Aeneid, Servius presents the coexistence of truth and fiction as essential to epic poetry, associating the first with the poem’s historical foundations and the second with divine scenes. By presenting the gods of epic as literary conventions, he evades the criticism which their representation typically attracted. Rationalising and euhemeristic interpretations facilitate his ‘historicising’ reading of traditional myths and gods, thus increasing the truth-value of the Aeneid and defending its use in educational settings.

Servius resorts sparingly to allegoresis; its frequency is directly proportional to the ‘degree of fictionality’ of the poem under analysis: the highest in the Eclogues, ‘average’ (but discontinuous) in the Aeneid, the lowest in the Georgics. In the commentary on the Aeneid, Servius applies allegoresis only to patently fictional sequences, e.g. divine scenes and Aeneas’ katabasis, which he reads predominantly through a Stoic/Neoplatonic lens.

The concept of verisimilitude, defined as adherence to natural norms, enables Servius to trace the boundaries within which poets can exercise their creativity: supernatural fabrications must always have literary or extra-textual models. Thus, good poetry always carries cultural significance, for even marvellous elements teach about the ‘real’ world and literary tradition.