Reformulações da auctoritas de Esopo no projeto poético de Fedro

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the means by which the fabulist Phaedrus (I CE) establishes portrails of his asserted model, Aesop, in order to put up his own authority as a poet who enjoys greater creative autonomy. This investigation takes as an essential corpus all texts in Phaedrus’ fable-book which allude in some way to Aesop. With an eye on this, we propose an analysis divided into three steps. In the first one, we approach some of Phaedrus’ creative conditions, among which we prioritize the compositional precepts employed by the fabulist, strongly related to those also employed by poet Horace (63-8 BCE), and former Aesopic portrails, which Phaedrus could have reckoned during the composition of his own fable-book. In the second one, we accomplish an analysis specifically focused on the corpus, mindful of the traits connected to dircursive handlings about Aesop’s image and to these handlings’ influence on the poetical and moral authority of both fabulists. We propose, at last, a concluding analysis, which matches and summarizes features of the two aforegoing steps, in light of a contemporary canvass concerning Phaedrus’s self-introduction under a poetic persona.