Illustrated with copious quotations (all translated) this book offers a full account of the great Latin love poets: Catallus, Propertius, Tibullus, Horace, and Ovid. Set in social and historical context, it combines literary history with literary criticism to reveal something of the personality of the poets themselves.
In recent decades, Latin love poetry has become a significant site for feminist and other literary critics studying conceptions of gender and sexuality in ancient Roman culture. This new volume, the first to focus specifically on gender dynamics in Latin love poetry, moves beyond the polarized critical positions that argue that this poetry either confirms traditional gender roles or subverts them. Rather, the essays in the collection explore the ways in which Latin erotic texts can have both effects, shifting power back and forth between male and female. If there is one conclusion that emerges, it is that the dynamics of gender in Latin amatory poetry do not map in any single way onto the cultural and historical norms of Roman society. In fact, as several essays show, there is a dialectical relationship between this poetry and Roman cultural practices. By complicating the views of gender dynamics in Latin love poetry, this exciting new scholarship will stimulate further debates in classical studies and literary criticism with its fresh perspectives.
It is often claimed that the kind of love that is variously deemed 'romantic' or 'true' did not exist in antiquity. Yet, ancient literature abounds with stories that seem to adhere precisely to this kind of love. This volume focuses on such literature and the concepts of love it espouses. The volume differs from and challenges much existing classical scholarship which has traditionally privileged the theme of sex over love and prose-genres over those of poetry. By conversely focusing on love and poetry, the present volume freshly explores central poets in ancient literature, such Homer, Sappho, Terence, Catullus, Virgil, Horace and Ovid, alongside less canonized, such as the anonymous poet of The Lament for Bion, Philodemus and Sulpicia. The chapters, which are written by world-leading as well as younger scholars, reveal that Greek and Latin concepts of love seem interconnected, that such love is as relevant for hetero- as homoerotic couples, and that such ideas of love follow the mainstream of poetry throughout antiquity. In addition to the general reader interested in the history of love, this volume is relevant for students and scholars of the ancient world and the poetic tradition.
Interdisciplinary in approach and methodologically sophisticated, this book explores the dynamic reception of Latin erotic elegy in Renaissance love poetry.
Latin love elegy is one of the most important poetic genres in the Augustan era, also known as the golden age of Roman literature. This volume brings together leading scholars from Australia, Europe and North America to present and explore the Greek and Roman backdrop for Latin love elegy, the individual Latin love elegists (both the canonical and the non-canonical), their poems and influence on writers in later times. The book is designed as an accessible introduction for the general reader interested in Latin love elegy and the history of love and lament in Western literature, as well as a collection of critically stimulating essays for students and scholars of Latin poetry and of the classical tradition.
Inspired by Theodore Papanghelis’ Propertius: A Hellenistic Poet on Love and Death (1987), this collective volume brings together seventeen contributions, written by an international team of experts, exploring the different ways in which Latin authors and some of their modern readers created narratives of life, love and death. Taken together the papers offer stimulating readings of Latin texts over many centuries, examined in a variety of genres and from various perspectives: poetics and authorial self-fashioning; intertextuality; fiction and ‘reality’; gender and queer studies; narratological readings; temporality and aesthetics; genre and meta-genre; structures of the narrative and transgression of boundaries on the ideological and the formalistic level; reception; meta-dramatic and feminist accounts-the female voice. Overall, the articles offer rich insights into the handling and development of these narratives from Classical Greece through Rome up to modern English poetry.
The Poems of Catullus describes the lifestyle of the Latin poet Catullus, his friends, and his lover, Lesbia. Catullus writes about each of his subjects in tones unique to them. With wild stories of the trouble and comradery shared by his friends, Catullus provides insight on more scandalous aspects of high society Roman culture. However, Catullus’ most shocking and compelling subject is his lover, Lesbia, the wife of an aristocrat. The two share a secret and sensual love, taboo not just because of the infidelity, but because Lesbia is many years older than Catullus. Throughout his poems, Catullus depicts their complicated relationship, first in a tender, lustful way, detailing their affairs, then gradually becomes more heated with angst and confusion. In his exploration of their relationship, Catullus embodies the possibility of simultaneously loving and hating someone. With vivid emotion and imagery, The Poems of Catullus provide a clear picture of the poet, his friends, and his lover and invoke a strong impression on its audience. Because of the deep emotions infused with each word and the visceral depictions of ancient Roman life, this collection of poetry is relatable to a modern-day audience, and is an essential educational source. Catullus paved the way and inspired change in the art of poetry, influencing countless poets and poetry styles. The Poems of Catullus also helped create the idea of poetry as a profession. The Poems of Catullus serves a valuable and educational source, enlightening audiences on the culture of the upper-class of the late Roman Republic. However, because Catullus also explores the complex human emotions regarding friendship, sex, and love, The Poems of Catullus have proven to be a timeless testament to the duality of humankind, embracing emotions that lie between the extremes in the spectrum of feeling. Catering to a contemporary audience, this edition of The Poems of Catullus features a new, eye-catching cover design and is reprinted in a modern font to accompany the timeless exploration of human emotion and the humorous, exciting life events of the influential poet Catullus.
Over the centuries, Latin love elegy has inspired love poetry in the West from Petrarch to Pound. A Latin Lover in Ancient Rome: Readings in Propertius and His Genre offers a critical reevaluation of the Latin elegiac poet Propertius, situating him within the social and political milieu of first-century BCE Rome. W. R. Johnson's study is centered on close readings of the poems in Propertius' four books that emphasize both his celebration of erotic freedom as a manifestation of the sovereignty of the individual and his insistence on the value of this freedom, especially when it is threatened by autocratic ideology. Many recent titles on Propertius have tended to minimize or ignore this aspect of the poet's work, concentrating instead on neo-formalism or Lacanian psychology. Johnson restores Propertius' erotic creed and his politics to the core of his poetics and his career. He offers a vivid picture of the sociopolitical and erotic world of the late Roman Republic and the early years of the Empire which hatched Latin love elegy and allowed it to flourish. This study aims to redirect attention to the pleasures and energies Propertius provides that later generations of poets and readers discovered in and through him.
