ВУЗ:
Составители:
Рубрика:
149
demanded that certain communal ceremonies take place there. For example, it was
customary for ladies to “receive” in their bedchambers.
Even the nineteenth century was reluctant to recognize the bedroom as a
private place. But in the twentieth, when the bed has become at last so private, so
intimate, that it is now a world unto itself, where everything is possible.
THE AUTHOR AS READER
In one event at the end of the first century AD, Gaius Plinius Caecilius
Secoundus (known to future readers as Pliny the Younger to distinguish him from
his erudite uncle, Pliny the Elder) left the house of a friend in Rome in a state of
righteous anger. As soon as he reached his study, Pliny sat down and, in order to
collect his thoughts, wrote about that night’s events to his friend. “I have just left in
indignation a reading at a friend of mine’s, and I feel I have to write to you at once,
as I can’t tell you about it personally. The text that was read was highly polished in
every possible way, but two or three witty people – or so they seemed to
themselves and a few others – listened to it like deafmutes.”
It is somewhat difficult for us, at a distance of twenty centuries, to
understand Pliny’s dismay. In his time, authors’ readings had become a fashionable
social ceremony and, as with any other ceremony, there was an established
etiquette for both the listeners and the authors. The listeners were expected to
provide critical response, based on which the author would improve the text. That
is why the motionless audience had so outraged Pliny.
The author too was obliged to follow certain rules if his reading was to be
successful, for there were all sorts of obstacles to overcome. First of all an
appropriate reading-space had to be found. Rich men fancied themselves poets,
and recited their work to large crowds of acquaintances at their large villas, in the
auditorium – a room built specially for that purpose. Once his friends had gathered
at the appointed place, the author had to face them from a chair, wearing a new
toga and displaying all his rings. Oratorical skills were therefore essential. Praising
