Marco Formisano, in ‘The King Listens: Origins, Noises, and Panegyric in Sidonius Apollinaris’ Carmen 1’ (Arethusa 54 (2021) 275-90), contends “that the opening position of Carmen 1 is relevant, not only to its own interpretation, but also to the interpretation of the subsequent panegyric and to Sidonius’s poetry as a whole”. “Noise” precedes “meaning” in poetry, and in panegyric above all.

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