‘Let him thus be a Hippolytus’ (Perist. 11.87): Horror and Rhetoric in Prudentius’ Peristephanon 11

The characterization of Hippolytus, the main protagonist of Prudentius' Peristephanon 11, draws heavily on earlier literary traditions, most importantly Seneca's Phaedra. Nevertheless, the Hippolytus-imagery is carefully adapted in order to develop a rhetoric of bodily fragmentation and reunion. This discourse makes the minds of the readers receptive for a proper veneration of the saint's relics.

http://ift.tt/2u1X6yO