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Elegiac
The adjective ''elegiac'' has two possible meanings. First, it can refer to something of, relating to, or involving, an elegy or something that expresses similar mournfulness or sorrow. Second, it can refer more specifically to poetry composed in the form of elegiac couplets. An elegiac couplet consists of one line of poetry in dactylic hexameter followed by a line in dactylic pentameter. Because dactylic hexameter is used throughout epic poetry, and because the elegiac form was always considered "lower style" than epic, elegists, or poets who wrote elegies, frequently wrote with epic poetry in mind and positioned themselves in relation to epic. Classical poets The first examples of elegiac poetry in writing come from classical Greece. The form dates back nearly as early as epic, with such authors as Archilocus and Simonides of Ceos from early in the history of Greece. The first great elegiac poet of the Hellenistic period was Philitas of Cos: Augustan poets identified his n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three Western canon, canonical poets of Latin literature. The Roman Empire, Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegy, elegists.Quint. ''Inst.'' 10.1.93 Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus Exile of Ovid, exiled him to Constanța, Tomis, the capital of the newly-organised province of Moesia, on the Black Sea, where he remained for the last nine or ten years of his life. Ovid himself attributed his banishment to a "poem and a mistake", but his reluctance to disclose specifics has resulted in much speculation among scholars. Ovid is most famous for the ''Metamorphoses'', a continuous mythological narrative in fifteen books written in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elegiac Couplet
The elegiac couplet or elegiac distich is a poetic form used by Greek lyric poets for a variety of themes usually of smaller scale than the epic. Roman poets, particularly Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid, adopted the same form in Latin many years later. As with the English heroic couplet, each pair of lines usually makes sense on its own, while forming part of a larger work. Each couplet consists of a dactylic hexameter verse followed by a dactylic pentameter verse. The following is a graphic representation of its scansion: – uu , – uu , – uu , – uu , – uu , – x – uu , – uu , – , , – uu , – uu , – – is one long syllable, u one short syllable, uu is one long or two short syllables, and x is one long or one short syllable ( anceps). The form was felt by the ancients to contrast the rising action of the first verse with a falling quality in the second. The sentiment is summarized in a line from Ovid's ''Amores'' I.1.2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philitas Of Cos
Philitas of Cos (; , ''Philītas ho Kōos''; – ), sometimes spelled Philetas (; , ''Philētas''; see Bibliography below), was a Greek scholar, poet and grammarian during the early Hellenistic period of ancient Greece. He is regarded as the founder of the Hellenistic school of poetry, which flourished in Alexandria after about 323 BC. Philitas is also reputed to have been the tutor of Ptolemy II Philadelphus and the poet Theocritus. He was thin and frail; Athenaeus later caricatured him as an academic so consumed by his studies that he wasted away and died. Philitas was the first major Greek writer who was both a scholar and a poet. His reputation continued for centuries, based on both his pioneering study of words and his verse in elegiac meter. His vocabulary ''Disorderly Words'' described the meanings of rare literary words, including those used by Homer. His poetry, notably his elegiac poem ''Demeter'', was highly respected by later ancient poets. However, almost all his w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Propertius
Sextus Propertius was a Latin elegiac poet of the Augustan age. He was born around 50–45 BC in Assisium (now Assisi) and died shortly after 15 BC. Propertius' surviving work comprises four books of '' Elegies'' ('). He was a friend of the poets Gallus and Virgil and, with them, had as his patron Maecenas and, through Maecenas, the emperor Augustus. Although Propertius was not as renowned in his own time as other Latin elegists, he is today regarded by scholars as a major poet. Life Very little information exists about Propertius outside of his own writing. His praenomen "Sextus" is mentioned by Aelius Donatus, a few manuscripts list him as "Sextus Propertius", but the rest of his name is unknown. From numerous references in his poetry it is clear he was born and raised in Umbria, of a well-to-do family at or near Asisium (Assisi). His birthplace is generally regarded as modern Assisi, where tourists can view the excavated remains of a house thought to have belonged at l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elegy
An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometimes used as a catch-all to denominate texts of a somber or pessimistic tone, sometimes as a marker for textual monumentalizing, and sometimes strictly as a sign of a lament for the dead". History The Greek term ἐλεγείᾱ (''elegeíā''; from , , ‘lament’) originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter (death, love, war). The term also included epitaphs, sad and mournful songs, and commemorative verses. The Latin elegy of ancient Roman literature was most often erotic or mythological in nature. Because of its structural potential for rhetorical effects, the elegiac couplet was also used by both Greek and Roman poets for witty, humorous, and satirical subject matter. O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard
''Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard'' is a poem by Thomas Gray, completed in 1750 and first published in 1751. The poem's origins are unknown, but it was partly inspired by Gray's thoughts following the death of the poet Richard West in 1742. Originally titled ''Stanzas Wrote in a Country Church-Yard'', the poem was completed when Gray was living near the Church of St Giles, Stoke Poges. It was sent to his friend Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, Horace Walpole, who popularised the poem among London literary circles. Gray was eventually forced to publish the work on 15 February 1751 in order to preempt a magazine publisher from printing an unlicensed copy of the poem. The poem is an elegy in name but not in elegiac couplets, form; it employs a style similar to that of contemporary odes, but it embodies a meditation on death, and remembrance after death. The poem argues that the remembrance can be good and bad, and the narrator finds comfort in pondering the lives of the obs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elegy
An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometimes used as a catch-all to denominate texts of a somber or pessimistic tone, sometimes as a marker for textual monumentalizing, and sometimes strictly as a sign of a lament for the dead". History The Greek term ἐλεγείᾱ (''elegeíā''; from , , ‘lament’) originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter (death, love, war). The term also included epitaphs, sad and mournful songs, and commemorative verses. The Latin elegy of ancient Roman literature was most often erotic or mythological in nature. Because of its structural potential for rhetorical effects, the elegiac couplet was also used by both Greek and Roman poets for witty, humorous, and satirical subject matter. O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tibullus
Albius Tibullus ( BC BC) was a Latin poet and writer of elegies. His first and second books of poetry are extant; many other texts attributed to him are of questionable origins. Little is known about the life of Tibullus. There are only a few references to him by later writers and a short ''Life'' of doubtful authority. Neither his ''praenomen'' nor his birthplace is known, and his gentile name has been questioned. His status was probably that of a Roman '' eques'' (so the ''Life'' affirms), and he had inherited a considerable estate. Like Virgil and Propertius, he seems to have lost most of it in 41 BC in the confiscations of Mark Antony and Octavian. Life Tibullus's chief friend and patron was Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, himself an orator and poet as well as a statesman and a commander. Messalla, like Gaius Maecenas, was at the centre of a literary circle in Rome. This circle had no relationship with the court, and the name of Augustus is found nowhere in the wr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dactylic Hexameter
Dactylic hexameter is a form of meter used in Ancient Greek epic and didactic poetry as well as in epic, didactic, satirical, and pastoral Latin poetry. Its name is derived from Greek (, "finger") and (, "six"). Dactylic hexameter consists of six feet. The first five feet contain either two long syllables, a spondee (– –), or a long syllable followed by two short syllables, a dactyl (–ᴗᴗ). However, the last foot contains either a spondee or a long syllable followed by one short syllable, a trochee(– ᴗ). The six feet and their variation is symbolically represented below: The hexameter is traditionally associated with classical epic poetry in both Greek and Latin. Consequently, it has been considered to be ''the'' grand style of Western classical poetry. Examples of epics in hexameter are Homer's ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'', Apollonius of Rhodes's ''Argonautica'', Virgil's ''Aeneid'', Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'', Lucan's ''Pharsalia'', Valerius Flaccus's ''Argona ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simonides Of Ceos
Simonides of Ceos (; ; c. 556 – 468 BC) was a Greek lyric poet, born in Ioulis on Ceos. The scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria included him in the canonical list of the nine lyric poets esteemed by them as worthy of critical study. Included on this list were Bacchylides, his nephew, and Pindar, reputedly a bitter rival, both of whom benefited from his innovative approach to lyric poetry. Simonides, however, was more involved than either in the major events and with the personalities of their times. Lessing, writing in the Enlightenment era, referred to him as "the Greek Voltaire." His general renown owes much to traditional accounts of his colourful life, as one of the wisest of men; as a greedy miser; as an inventor of a system of mnemonics; and the inventor of some letters of the Greek alphabet (). Such accounts include fanciful elements, yet he had a real influence on the sophistic enlightenment of the Classical era. His fame as a poet rests largely on his abi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus (; ), known as Catullus (), was a Latin neoteric poet of the late Roman Republic. His surviving works remain widely read due to their popularity as teaching tools and because of their personal or sexual themes. Life Gāius Valerius Catullus was born to a leading equestrian family of Verona, in Cisalpine Gaul. The social prominence of the Catullus family allowed the father of Gaius Valerius to entertain Julius Caesar when he was the Promagistrate (proconsul) of both Gallic provinces. In a poem, Catullus describes his happy homecoming to the family villa at Sirmio, on Lake Garda, near Verona; he also owned a villa near the resort of Tibur (modern Tivoli). Catullus appears to have spent most of his young adult years in Rome. His friends there included the poets Licinius Calvus and Helvius Cinna, Quintus Hortensius (son of the orator and rival of Cicero), and the biographer Cornelius Nepos, to whom Catullus dedicated a '' libellus'' of poems, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
