A cento is a poem composed wholly from fragments from another poet’s work. The patchwork should be harmonized so as not to make the seams prominent and so that the new work has a unified sense. According to Ausonius, a cento should be composed from half lines and one-and-half lines; two successive lines from one source is permissible, but three lines represents a poetic failure. A small number of Virgilian centos (centos sourced from Virgil’s poems) and Homeric centos (centos sourced from the Iliad and Odyssey) have survived from antiquity. The most important of the former is Ausonius’s Cento nuptialis and Proba’s Cento Vergilianus de laudibus Christi. The most important of the latter is a Homeric cento on a wedding night from the Greek Anthology.
Medieval labyrinths traced a winding path to God, with Feasts of Rod and Ass, biblical nonsense centos, Invicem & Nemo texts, and other joyful parodies. … Read the post through labyrinths: medieval fullness of life and joy in creativity
A woman caught in adultery goes free; a monk, castrated. This penal gender bias pervasive throughout history echoes in a medieval biblical cento. … Read the post medieval monk castrated for adultery; husband doesn’t punish wife
In Ovid’s Heroides & Musaeus’s Hero and Leander, Leander promises to swim again across the Hellespont to Hero. Now Leander insists on gender equality. … Read the post Leander to Hero: it’s your turn to swim
Calypso rapes Odysseus in the Odyssey. That’s no more symbolically unusual than brutalizing men’s sexuality. A Homeric cento created a different voice. … Read the post Homeric cento subtly reverses gender to refigure men’s sexuality
Encolpius suffered impotence with Circe in the Satyricon. The Virgilian cento describing his drooping penis proclaims the epic disaster of men’s impotence. … Read the post epic disaster of men’s impotence: Encolpius in the Satyricon