Irene Giove Meschian

PhD research: Irene Giove Meschian

Persuasion in Verse: Classical Rhetoric in Hiberno-Latin Christian Poetry 

This project investigates how classical rhetoric persists and adapts in Latin Christian poetry from the fifth to ninth centuries. Addressing a significant gap in scholarship, it examines three comparative case studies: Coelius Sedulius’s Carmen Paschale, Columbanus’s Carmina, and Sedulius Scottus’s Carmina. Using philological and textual analysis of the original Latin, the study identifies rhetorical devices including figures of speech and thought, ethos, pathos, argumentative dispositio, epideictic elements, and biblical exempla. Comparative analysis will assess differences across authors, periods, contexts, and purposes, demonstrating that classical rhetoric remained a dynamic feature of early medieval Irish Christian poetry.

E-mail: i.giovemeschian1@universityofgalway.ie
Supervisor: Prof. Pádraic Moran
Funding: University of Galway Hardiman Scholarship (2026–2030)

Research area: the Latin tradition