In the Name-of-the-Father: Rutilius Namatianus and the Collapse of Classical Logocentrism

Abstract

Abstract:Rutilius Namatianus's poem De Reditu Suo, written around AD 418, is especially famous for its gloomy and almost "romantic" depictions of ruins and nocturnal landscapes. However, at a deeper level of reading, it thematizes an anxiety towards the ideas of origin, fatherhood/fatherland, and language that is systematically explored in this paper from different theoretical perspectives, most notably Lacanian psychoanalysis. This new insight into the underlying fears and hopes conveyed (and often silenced) by the poem allows a new interpretation of the piece in its entirety, which should ultimately be considered as a reaction to the collapse of classical logocentrism.