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Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His surviving works are still read widely and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art. Catullus's poems were widely appreciated by contemporary poets, significantly influencing Ovid and Virgil, among others. After his rediscovery in the Late Middle Ages, Catullus again found admirers such as Petrarch. The explicit sexual imagery which he uses in some of his poems has shocked many readers. Yet, at many instruction levels, Catullus is considered a resource for teachers of Latin. Catullus's style is highly personal, humorous, and emotional; he frequently uses hyperbole, anaphora, alliteration, and diminutives. In 25 of his poems he mentions his devotion to a woman he refers to as " Lesbia", who is widely believed to have been the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poetry Of Catullus
The poetry of Gaius Valerius Catullus was written towards the end of the Roman Republic. It describes the lifestyle of the poet and his friends, as well as, most famously, his love for the woman he calls Lesbia. Sources and organization Catullus's poems have been preserved in three manuscripts that were copied from one of two copies made from a lost manuscript discovered around 1300. These three surviving manuscript copies are stored at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and the Vatican Library in Rome. These manuscripts contained approximately 116 of Catullus's ''carmina''. However, a few fragments quoted by later Roman editors but not found in the manuscripts show that there are some additional poems that have been lost. There is no scholarly consensus on whether Catullus himself arranged the order of the poems. While the numbering of the poems up to 116 has been retained, three of these poems—18, 19 and 20—are excluded from most mode ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lesbia
Lesbia was the literary pseudonym used by the Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus ( 82–52 BC) to refer to his lover. Lesbia is traditionally identified with Clodia, the wife of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer and sister of Publius Clodius Pulcher; her conduct and motives are maligned in Cicero's extant speech ''Pro Caelio,'' delivered in 56 BC. Overview Lesbia is the subject of 25 of Catullus' 116 surviving poems, and these display a wide range of emotions (see Catullus 85), ranging from tender love (e. g. Catullus 5, Catullus 7), to sadness and disappointment (e.g. Catullus 72), and to bitter sarcasm (e.g. Catullus 8), following the often unsteady course of Catullus' relationship. The name evokes the poet Sappho, who was from the isle of Lesbos. Catullus's poem 35 celebrating his poet friend Caecilius of Novum Comum also mentions the devotion of Caecilius' girlfriend, who is herself accorded a remarkable tribute as "girl more learned than Sappho's Muse" (lines 16–17: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catullus 5
Catullus 5 is a passionate ode to Lesbia and one of the most famous poems by Catullus. The poem encourages lovers to scorn the snide comments of others, and to live only for each other, since life is brief and death brings a night of perpetual sleep. This poem has been translated and imitated many times. This poem is written in the Phalaecian hendecasyllabic meter (Latin: ''hendecasyllabus phalaecius'') which has verses of 11 syllables, a common form in Catullus' poetry. 17th century translations In 1601, the English composer, poet and physician Thomas Campion wrote this rhyming free translation of the first half (to which he added two verses of his own, and music, to create a lute song): My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love; And though the sager sort our deeds reprove, Let us not weigh them. Heaven's great lamps do dive Into their west, and straight again revive, But soon as once is set our little light, Then must we sleep one ever-during night. Ben Jonson drew on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clodia Metelli
Clodia (born Claudia, c. 95 or 94 BC), nicknamed Quadrantaria ("Quarter", from ''quadrantarius'', the price of a visit to the public baths), Nola ("The Unwilling", from the verb ''nolo'', in sarcastic reference to her alleged wantonness), Medea Palatina ("Medea of the Palatine") by Cicero ( see below), and occasionally referred to in scholarship as Clodia MetelliMarilyn B. Skinner, "Clodia Metelli", '' Transactions of the American Philological Association'' 113 (1983), pp. 273–287, ("Metellus's Clodia"), was one of three known daughters of the ancient Roman patrician Appius Claudius Pulcher. Like many other women of the Roman elite, Clodia was very well educated in Greek and Philosophy, with a special talent for writing poetry.Wiseman, T. P.: "Catullus and His World: A Reappraisal".(1987) Her life, which was characterized by perpetual scandal, is immortalized in the writings of Marcus Tullius Cicero and, it is generally believed, in the poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus. B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neoteric
The Neoterikoi (Ancient Greek: '; Latin: ', "new poets") or Neoterics were a series of avant-garde Latin poets who wrote in the 1st century BCE. Neoteric poets deliberately turned away from classical Homeric epic poetry. Rather than focusing on the feats of ancient heroes and gods, they propagated a new style of poetry through stories that operated on a smaller scale in regard to themes and setting. Although the poems of the Neoterics may seem to address superficial subjects, many scholars view their work as subtle and accomplished works of art. Neoteric poetry has frequently been compared to the Modernist movement of the late 19th through the 20th century, as well as the Imagist movement. Neoterics Influenced by the Greek Hellenistic poets, the Neoterics rejected traditional social and literary norms. Their poetry is characterized by tight construction, a playful use of genre, punning, and complex allusions. The most significant surviving Neoteric works are those of Catullus. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sirmio
Sirmio is a promontory at the southern end of Lake Garda, projecting 3.3 kilometers (2.1 mi) into the lake. It is celebrated in connection with the Roman poet Catullus, as the large ruins of a Roman villa known as the Grottoes of Catullus on the promontory have been supposed to be his country house. Catullus, upon his return home from a long voyage, joyously describes Sirmio as ''Paene insularum, Sirmio, insularumque ocelle'' ("Sirmio, jewel of peninsulas and of islands") in his Carmen XXXI, ''Ad Sirmionem insulam''. A post station bearing the name Sirmio stood on the highroad between Brixia (modern Brescia) and Verona, near the southern shore of the lake. On the shore below is the village of Sirmione, with sulfur baths. In 1880, the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, visited what he called "Sweet Catullus's all-but-island, olive-silvery Sirmio" in his poem "Frater Ave Atque Vale", the title referring to the last line of a famous elegy An elegy is a poem of serious reflectio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and subsequently became dictator from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus and Pompey formed the First Triumvirate, an informal political alliance that dominated Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to amass power as were opposed by the within the Roman Senate, among them Cato the Younger with the frequent support of Cicero. Caesar rose to become one of the most powerful politicians in the Roman Republic through a string of military victories in the Gallic Wars, completed by 51 BC, which greatly extended Roman territory. During this time he both invaded Britain an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Licinius Macer Calvus
Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus (28 May 82 BC – c. 47 BC) was an orator and poet of ancient Rome. Son of Licinius Macer and thus a member of the ''gens Licinia'', he was a friend of the poet Catullus, whose style and subject matter he shared. Calvus' oratorical style opposed the "Asian" school in favor of a simpler Attic model: he characterized Cicero as wordy and artificial. Twenty-one speeches are mentioned, including several against Publius Vatinius. Calvus was apparently short, since Catullus alludes to him as ''salaputium disertum'' (eloquent Lilliputian). Seneca the Elder also mentions his short stature, and refers a story in which Calvus asked to be raised to a platform, so that he could defend one of his clients.Seneca the Elder, ''Controversiae'', 7.4.6 F. Plessis published fragments of Calvus in 1896. See also * Licinia (gens) The gens Licinia was a celebrated plebeian family at ancient Rome, which appears from the earliest days of the Republic until imperi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latin Poetry
The history of Latin poetry can be understood as the adaptation of Greek models. The verse comedies of Plautus, the earliest surviving examples of Latin literature, are estimated to have been composed around 205-184 BC. History Scholars conventionally date the start of Latin literature to the first performance of a play in verse by a Greek slave, Livius Andronicus, at Rome in 240 BC. Livius translated Greek New Comedy for Roman audiences, using meters that were basically those of Greek drama, modified to the needs of Latin. His successors Plautus ( 254 – 184 BC) and Terence ( 195/185 – 159? BC) further refined the borrowings from the Greek stage and the prosody of their verse is substantially the same as for classical Latin verse. Ennius (239 – 169 BC), virtually a contemporary of Livius, introduced the traditional meter of Greek epic, the dactylic hexameter, into Latin literature; he substituted it for the jerky Saturnian meter in which Livius had been compos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helvius Cinna
Gaius Helvius Cinna (died 20 March 44 BC) was an influential neoteric poet of the late Roman Republic, a little older than the generation of Catullus and Calvus. He was lynched at the funeral of Julius Caesar after being mistaken for an unrelated Cornelius Cinna who had spoken out in support of the dictator's assassins. Overview Cinna's literary fame was established by his magnum opus "Zmyrna", a mythological epic poem focused on the incestuous love of Smyrna (or Myrrha) for her father Cinyras, treated after the erudite and allusive manner of the Alexandrian poets. He was a friend of Catullus (poem 10, 29–30: ''meus sodalis / Cinna est Gaius''). When "Zmyrna" was completed in about 55 BC, Catullus hailed it as a great achievement, nine harvests and nine winters in the making. The poem has not survived. This is the key information to survive about his life, together with a passage in the ''Suda'' about the Augustan period poet Parthenius of Nicaea: Son of Heracleides and Eud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Garda
Lake Garda ( it, Lago di Garda or ; lmo, label= Eastern Lombard, Lach de Garda; vec, Ƚago de Garda; la, Benacus; grc, Βήνακος) is the largest lake in Italy. It is a popular holiday location in northern Italy, about halfway between Brescia and Verona, and between Venice and Milan on the edge of the Dolomites. Glaciers formed this alpine region at the end of the last ice age. The lake and its shoreline are divided between the provinces of Brescia (to the south-west), Verona (south-east) and Trentino (north). Etymology In Roman times the lake was known as ''Benacus'' and by some it was revered as god Benacus, the personification of the lake, sometimes associated with the cult of Neptune. Today it is better known as Lake Garda, a toponym of Germanic origin attested since the Middle Ages and deriving from that of the homonymous town on the Veronese shore of the lake, which, together with another famous locality of the lake, Gardone Riviera, and others less known ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cornelius Nepos
Cornelius Nepos (; c. 110 BC – c. 25 BC) was a Roman biographer. He was born at Hostilia, a village in Cisalpine Gaul not far from Verona. Biography Nepos's Cisalpine birth is attested by Ausonius, and Pliny the Elder calls him ''Padi accola'' ("a dweller on the River Po", ''Naturalis historia'' III.127). He was a friend of Catullus, who dedicates his poems to him (I.3), Cicero and Titus Pomponius Atticus. Eusebius places him in the fourth year of the reign of Augustus, which is supposed to be when he began to attract critical acclaim by his writing. Pliny the Elder notes he died in the reign of Augustus (''Natural History'' IX.39, X.23). Works ''De viris illustribus'' Nepos' ''De viris illustribus'' consisted of parallel lives of distinguished Romans and foreigners, in sixteen books. It originally included "descriptions of foreign and Roman kings, generals, lawyers, orators, poets, historians, and philosophers". However, the sole surviving book (which is thought t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
