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By Silvia Gomez

Late Antique Christian poetry has traditionally been studied from theological and textual perspectives, often overlooking its sensory and emotional dimensions. This project adopts an interdisciplinary approach to reinterpret these texts as multisensory and performative experiences embedded in liturgical and architectural contexts. By combining philology with the history of emotions and sensory studies, it explores how poetry functioned as a medium for shaping religious perception, commitment and devotion.

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Objectives

• To analyse Late Antique Christian poetry as a multisensory and emotional experience, moving beyond purely theological or textual approaches.
• To reinterpret poetry as a performative medium that mediates between text, body and sacred space.
• To explore how sensory perception and emotional response contribute to the formation of religious subjectivity and devotional practices.

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Research focus

• Literary and epigraphic texts (4th–6th centuries) from regions such as Hispania, Italy, Gaul and North Africa.
• Systematic study of the five senses—smell, sight, touch, taste and hearing—and their role in shaping liturgical experience.
• Identification and analysis of recurring sensory topoi (e.g. incense, light, bodily movement, taste metaphors, sound and chant).
• Reconstruction of ephemeral and non-preserved elements of ritual through poetic descriptions and their impact on the faithful.

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Methodology

• Close philological, lexical and metrical analysis, with particular attention to the language of the body and affectivity.
• Analysis of the performative context of texts: how they were read, sung, displayed and experienced within sacred spaces.
• Examination of how poetic form and rhythm function as tools of emotional intensification and collective engagement.

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The project is expected to demonstrate the central role of sensory and emotional dynamics in Late Antique Christian poetry, highlighting their importance for understanding religious experience in this period. It also contributes to interdisciplinary debates on religion, ritual and cultural practices in Antiquity, fostering new approaches that integrate philology, cultural history and cognitive-emotional perspectives in the study of ancient texts. Finally, it will explore how the sensory and emotional configuration of liturgical experience, grounded in the hope of salvation, may have contributed to sustaining and reinforcing strong forms of religious commitment among the faithful.