Abstract

This PhD thesis is a verse commentary to the first four episodes of Aurelius Prudentius Clemens’ Psychomachia, one of the works of this Latin poet of the late antiquity which have not yet received a detailed scientific commentary. The dissertation is written in Italian, it includes a translation of the text in free verses and an analysis of the first 309 verses, which provide an overview of the themes and literary peculiarities of the whole work. The preface introduces the work and its uniqueness as the first allegorical epic poem of the western literature, it explains the research methods which have been used and it sums up the results of the study. The method of the commentary tries to take into account the complexity of the object and the multiplicity of the secondary sources. Each chapter deals with one episode (altogether five, from the Praefatio to the fourth fight). It starts with an overview of the episode and divides it into meaningful units, then it determines the meaning of the single words or word groups, and it records a highly refined net of quotations or allusions both from the pagan and the christian literature. Further research on literary motives, ways of thinking or aspects of the author’s historical context is often necessary. Based on the above the commentary is to provide an interpretation of the allegorical system confronted with the previous research, whose statements are accepted, completed or confuted. The analysis of the poem as a continuum focuses on certain aspects which had been left aside up till now, and it calls into question some seemingly consolidated interpretations to propose new ones. This happens at the small level of understanding of the text unities as well as at the big level of the meaning of an episode or of certain phenomena, which pervade the whole work.