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Vergilius
Publius Vergilius Maro (; 15 October 70 BC21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the ''Eclogues'' (or ''Bucolics''), the ''Georgics'', and the epic ''Aeneid''. A number of minor poems, collected in the ''Appendix Vergiliana'', were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars generally regard these works as spurious, with the possible exception of a few short pieces. Already acclaimed in his own lifetime as a classic author, Virgil rapidly replaced Ennius and other earlier authors as a standard school text, and stood as the most popular Latin poet through late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and early modernity, exerting inestimable influence on all subsequent Western literature. Geoffrey Chaucer assigned Virgil a uniquely prominent position among all the celebrities of human history in ''The House of Fame'' (1374–85), describi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aeneid
The ''Aeneid'' ( ; or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan War#Sack of Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Ancient Rome, Romans. Written by the Roman poet Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, the ''Aeneid'' comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed. The hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the ''Iliad''. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas' wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Ancient Rome, Rome and his description as a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous ''pietas'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georgics
The ''Georgics'' ( ; ) is a poem by Latin poet Virgil, likely published in 29 BCE. As the name suggests (from the Greek language, Greek word , ''geōrgiká'', i.e. "agricultural [things]") the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from being an example of peaceful rural poetry, it is a work characterized by tensions in both theme and purpose. The ''Georgics'' is considered Virgil's second major work, following his ''Eclogues'' and preceding the ''Aeneid''. The poem draws on a variety of prior sources and has influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present. Description and summary The work consists of 2,188 hexameter, hexametric verses divided into four books. The yearly timings by the rising and setting of particular stars were valid for the precession of the equinoxes, precession epoch of Virgil's time, and so are not always valid now. Book One Virgil begins his poem with a dedication to Gaius Maecenas, Maecenas, then a summary of the four books, followed by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eclogues
The ''Eclogues'' (; , ), also called the ''Bucolics'', is the first of the three major works of the Latin poet Virgil. Background Taking as his generic model the Greek bucolic poetry of Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by offering a dramatic and mythic interpretation of revolutionary change at Rome in the turbulent period between roughly 44 and 38 BC. Virgil introduced political clamor largely absent from Theocritus' poems, called idylls ('little scenes' or 'vignettes'), even though erotic turbulence disturbs the "idyllic" landscapes of Theocritus. Virgil's book contains ten pieces, each called not an idyll but an eclogue, from the Greek ('selection', 'extract'). The poems are populated by and large with herdsmen imagined conversing and performing amoebaean singing in rural settings, whether suffering or embracing revolutionary change or happy or unhappy love. Performed with great success on the Roman stage, they feature a mix of visionary politics and e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Augustan Literature (ancient Rome)
Augustan literature is a period of Latin literature written during the reign of Augustus (27 BC–AD 14), the first Roman emperor. In literary histories of the first part of the 20th century and earlier, Augustan literature was regarded along with that of the Late Republic as constituting the Golden Age of Latin literature, a period of stylistic classicism. Fergus Millar, "Ovid and the Domus Augusta: Rome Seen from Tomoi," ''Journal of Roman Studies'' 83 (1993), p. 6. Most of the literature periodized as "Augustan" was in fact written by men— Vergil, Horace, Propertius, Livy—whose careers were established during the triumviral years, before Octavian assumed the title ''Augustus''. Strictly speaking, Ovid is the poet whose work is most thoroughly embedded in the Augustan regime. Impact and style Augustan literature produced the most widely read, influential, and enduring of Rome's poets. The Republican poets Catullus and Lucretius are their immediate predecessors; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Appendix Vergiliana
The ''Appendix Vergiliana'' is a collection of Latin poems traditionally ascribed as being the juvenilia (work written as a youth) of Virgil (70–19 BC).Régine ChambertVergil's Epicureanism in his early poems in "Vergil, Philodemus, and the Augustans" 2003: "Vergil's authorship of at least some of the poems in the Appendix is nowadays no longer contested. This is especially true of the Culex ... and also of a collection of short epigrams called the Catalepton." Many of the poems in the Appendix were considered works by Virgil in antiquity. However, recent studies suggest that the Appendix contains a diverse collection of minor poems by various authors from the 1st century AD. Scholars are almost unanimous in considering the works of the ''Appendix'' spurious, primarily on grounds of style, metrics, and vocabulary. Authorship Besides the ''Eclogues,'' the ''Georgics,'' and the ''Aeneid,'' a collection of minor works attributed to Virgil certainly existed by the reign of Ner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Servius The Grammarian
Servius, distinguished as Servius the Grammarian ( or ), was a late fourth-century and early fifth-century grammarian. He earned a contemporary reputation as the most learned man of his generation in Italy; he authored a set of commentaries on the works of Virgil. These works, ("Exposition on Three Works of Virgil"), ("Commentaries on Virgil"), ("Commentaries on the Works of Vergil"), or ("Commentaries on the Poems of Virgil"), constituted the first incunable to be printed at Florence, by Bernardo Cennini, in 1471. In the ''Saturnalia'' of Macrobius, Servius appears as one of the interlocutors; allusions in that work and a letter from Symmachus to Servius indicate that he was not a convert to Christianity. Name The name Servius also appears as Seruius owing to the unity of the Latin letters V and U from antiquity until as late as the 18th century. Many medieval manuscripts of Servius's commentaries give him the praenomen Marius or Maurus and the cognomen Honoratus. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pastoral Poetry
The pastoral genre of literature, art, or music depicts an idealised form of the shepherd's lifestyle – herding livestock around open areas of land according to the seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. The target audience is typically an urban one. A ''pastoral'' is a work of this genre. A piece of music in the genre is usually referred to as a pastorale. The genre is also known as bucolic, from the Greek , from , meaning a cowherd. Literature Pastoral literature in general Pastoral is a mode of literature in which the author employs various techniques to place the complex life into a simple one. Paul Alpers distinguishes pastoral as a mode rather than a genre, and he bases this distinction on the recurring attitude of power; that is to say that pastoral literature holds a humble perspective toward nature. Thus, pastoral as a mode occurs in many types of literature (poetry, drama, etc.) as well as genres (most notably the pastoral elegy). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ennius
Quintus Ennius (; ) was a writer and poet who lived during the Roman Republic. He is often considered the father of Roman poetry. He was born in the small town of Rudiae, located near modern Lecce (ancient ''Calabria'', today Salento), a town founded by the Messapians, and could speak Greek as well as Latin and Oscan (his native language). Although only fragments of his works survive, his influence in Latin literature was significant, particularly in his use of Greek literary models. Biography Very little is reliably known about the life of Ennius. His contemporaries hardly mentioned him and much that is related about him could have been embroidered from references to himself in his now fragmentary writings. Some lines of the ''Annales'', as well as ancient testimonies, for example, suggest that Ennius opened his epic with a recollection of a dream in which the ancient epic-writer Homer informed him that his spirit had been reborn into Ennius. It is true that the doctrine o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Literature
Western literature, also known as European literature, is the literature written in the context of Western culture in the languages of Europe, and is shaped by the periods in which they were conceived, with each period containing prominent western authors, poets, and pieces of literature. The best of Western literature is considered to be the Western canon. The list of works in the Western canon varies according to the critic's opinions on Western culture and the relative importance of its defining characteristics. Different literary periods held great influence on the literature of Western and European countries, with movements and political changes impacting the prose and poetry of the period. The 16th Century is known for the creation of Renaissance literature, while the 17th century was influenced by both Baroque and Jacobean forms. The 18th century progressed into a period known as the Enlightenment Era for many western countries. This period of military and political advanc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virgil Mosaic
The Mosaic of Virgil is a mosaic found on the site of the ancient Hadrumetum and currently preserved in Bardo National Museum (Tunis), Bardo National Museum in Tunis, where it constitutes one of its key pieces. It is currently the oldest portrait of the Latin poet Virgil. History The mosaic was discovered in 1896 in a garden of Sousse and constitutes the emblem of a larger mosaic. Description It is included in a frame of 1.22-meter side. Central character It represents the Ancient Rome, Roman poet Virgil, dressed in a white toga decorated with embroidery. The poet holds in his hand, which is placed on his knees, a roll of parchment on which are written extracts of the Aeneid, more precisely the eighth verse: ''"Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso, quidve..."'' Muses He is surrounded by the muses Clio and Melpomene: Clio, the muse of history, is placed on the left of the poet and shown reading, while Melpomene, the muse of tragedy, is holding a tragic mask. Interpretat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer ( ; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific ''A Treatise on the Astrolabe'' for his 10-year-old son, Lewis. He maintained a career in public service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament, having been elected as Knight of the shire, shire knight for Kent. Among Chaucer's many other works are ''The Book of the Duchess'', ''The House of Fame'', ''The Legend of Good Women'', ''Troilus and Criseyde'', and ''Parlement of Foules''. He is seen as crucial in legitimising the literary use of Middle English when the dominant literary languages in England were still Anglo-Norman Fren ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divine Comedy
The ''Divine Comedy'' (, ) is an Italian narrative poetry, narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun and completed around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of Western literature. The poem's imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval philosophy, medieval worldview as it existed in the Western Christianity, Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan dialect, Tuscan language, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts: ''Inferno (Dante), Inferno'', ''Purgatorio'', and ''Paradiso (Dante), Paradiso''. The poem explores the condition of the soul following death and portrays a vision of divine justice, in which individuals receive appropriate punishment or reward based on their actions.Vallone, Aldo. "Commedia" (trans. Robin Treasure). In: Lansing (ed.), ''The Dante Encyclopedia'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
