Tenuis oratio , or Terence’s “Limp” Poetics

This article examines Terence’s self-fashioning in Phormio’s prologue, locating an overlooked sexual poetics. The first part demonstrates that the fictionalized Luscius, in accusing Terence of tenuis oratio, refers not just to his “(re)fine(d)” substance, but also uses innuendo to characterize his literary opponent as “limp.” The second part discusses the implications for Terence’s poetics. Unlike the aggressive Catullus, Terence acquiesces to the charge of unmanliness; however, he also casts it back upon the vetus poeta, wittily exposing his rival’s hypermasculine pretensions. Terence thereby intimates that he could write traditional, “masculine,” palliata, but chooses not to because of more delicate taste.