부산대학교 도서관

Among Philip’s Garland there is a distinctive group of epigrams whose function is that of accompanying gifts. By serving as a means of communication between two distant people, the epigrams inevitably take the form of letters. This article explores the relationship between these poems and the epistolary genre, offering the first comprehensive study on this topic. Firstly, the paper examines the aspect of mobility as a characteristic feature of the epigrams. Secondly, it investigates the ways in which the epigrams are related to the epistolary genre. Thirdly, it focuses on the epistolary topos by which the letter is to be interpreted as a medium of friendship; it analyses how the concept of Roman amicitia is reflected in the epigrams. The final section discusses a particular category of poems, i. e. epigrams accompanying book gifts, and interprets them as poetological tools whose aim is to reflect amicitia within the discourse of literary patronage.