Fields of interest

• Classical languages and cultures
• Hellenistic poetry
• Latin poetry
• Intertextuality
• Metapoetics

Research

In my doctoral thesis (2010), I have argued that poets throughout classical antiquity used the myth of Hylas to reflect allegorically on their own poetry. By revealing the long tradition of "inter-poetical" dialogue between these authors, I contributed not only to a better understanding of how metapoetics worked in antiquity but I also unveiled hitherto unknown dimensions of well-studied classical poets including Apollonius, Theocritus, Propertius, Virgil, Valerius Flaccus and Statius.

Another research interest is the influence of Egyptian ideology in Hellenistic poetry. I have written on how Theocritus' poem in praise of Ptolemy Philadelphus combined Egyptian and Greek conceptions of kingship by alluding to earlier Greek (Homer, Hesiod) and Egyptian ideas. The poem thus offers an interesting parallel with Philadelphus' policy to unify the two major population groups of his country.

I have also published on Catullus' poetry book and its misconceptions, on the self-consciousness of Ovid's Metamorphoses as a work of poetry. Articles on Ovid's metapoetical metamorphosis of Virgil's Georgics, on the metapoetical contact between Apollonius and Callimachus, and on Valerius Flaccus' reaction to Virgil's Aeneid are forthcoming.

I am currently working on the representation of the archetypal poet Orpheus in the Flavian epics of Silius Italicus and Valerius Flaccus.

On 1 January 2012 I will start a three-year postdoc project ("Veni") funded by NWO on "The Poetics of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica".

Teaching activities

2011: Latin language acquisition

Curriculum vitae

2002: MA in Classics, Leiden
2010: PhD in Classics, Leiden (cum laude)
2010-2011: Niels Stensen Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Cambridge
2011: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Leiden (project funded by NWO Spinoza Award laureate Prof. Ineke Sluiter)
2012-: Veni Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Leiden

Key publications

"Apollonius and Callimachus on Heracles and Theiodamas: A Metapoetical Interpretation", Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica (forthcoming).

"Ovid's Aeginetan plague and the metamorphosis of the Georgics", Hermes. Zeitschrift für klassische Philologie (in press).

"Merging Paradigms: Translating Pharaonic Ideology in Theocritus' Idyll 17", in Interkulturalität in der Alten Welt: Vorderasien, Hellas, Ägypten und die vielfältigen Ebenen des Kontakts (eds. R. Rollinger, M. Lang, B. Gufler & I. Madreiter), Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag (2010), 383-408.

"Heinsius' Hylas als Echo der Antike", in Daniel Heinsius: neulateinischer Dichter und klassischer Philologe (eds. E. Lefèvre & E. Schäfer), Tübingen: Gunther Narr Verlag (2008), 145-170 (with Jan Bloemendal).

"Going a Step Further: Valerius Flaccus' Metapoetical Reading of Propertius 1.20", Classical Quarterly 57.2 (2007), 606-20.