Read complete books and articles on: Latin Literature

Latin Literature - the literature of ancient Rome and of that written in Latin in later eras.

Very little remains of the ritualistic songs and the native poetry of the Romans and Latins before the rise of a literature. The history of the Roman Empire is fundamental to the fabric of this literature: in the first three centuries of its development, the influence of captive Greece was all-pervasive

Latin Literature - the literature of ancient Rome and of that written in Latin in later eras.

The Development of a Classical Style

The close of the First Punic War (c.240 b.c.) marks the beginning of literary work in Rome with the plays of the slave Livius Andronicus, adapted from the Greek. The epic poet Gnaeus Naevius also wrote dramas, but he was far surpassed by the greatest of Roman dramatists, Plautus, a master of comedy. In his SatiresEnnius introduced the hexameter into Latin; Cato the Elder opposed the hellenizing group, to which Ennius belonged, and wrote his works in as rude a Latin as possible. However, his efforts had little effect and the works of Terence, Greek in scene and origin, manifest the tremendous interchange of Greek and Latin writing.

The 1st cent. b.c., the last era of the Roman republic, produced some of the greatest figures in Latin literature—the encyclopedist Varro, the statesmen and prose masters Cicero and Julius Caesar, the poets Lucretius and Catullus, and the historian Sallust. Vergil, the greatest of Latin epic poets, exemplifies a new atmosphere in the Augustan age, with his celebration—and somber questioning—of the new empire. In his epodes, odes, and satires, the poet Horace brought the Latin lyric to perfection, while the elegy was cultivated by Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid. The notable historian of the age was Livy.

Post-classical Literature

During the first half of the 1st cent. a.d., Latin literature in its classical form was in decline. The works of Seneca, Lucan, Persius, and Statius typify a period in which the masters, both Latin and Greek, were imitated. Among the most original poets were Martial and Juvenal, celebrated for their satiric writings. Petronius, Frontinus, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger (see under Pliny the Elder), and Tacitus were the chief writers of prose; Suetonius exemplified the richness of historical and biographical writing under the Principate, while Quintilian brought classical literary criticism to its greatest development.

In the 2d cent. Marcus Fronto distinguished himself as an orator; his pupil Marcus Aurelius gained fame both as a ruler and as one of the masters of the Latin essay. In the 3d and 4th cent. the writings of Ausonius and Avienus extended beyond classical studies, developing traditional themes to deal with everyday life and the world of nature. Claudian is considered the best of the late poets. Ammianus Marcellinus was a noted historian. The philological scholars of the empire were numerous. These included Aulus Gellius, Terentianus, Macrobius, Martianus Capella, and Priscian.

As the classical inspiration died, the tradition of Latin literature was borrowed from and carried forward in Christian writing. Prudentius attempted to build a Christian style on classical models, but failed. The Latin language became the standard language of the West and by far the greater bulk of medieval literature as well as records, documents, and letters was written in Latin (see patristic literature; Medieval Latin literature; Roman law).

The Renaissance

The literature of the Renaissance represents a conscious attempt to recapture the classical spirit. Most learned people cultivated Latin, and many of them succeeded in writing a Latin style that stands comparison with classical Latin models. Petrarch, Boccaccio, Poggio Bracciolini, Poliziano, Pontano, and Pius II were accomplished Latin writers. Erasmus violently attacked the ubiquitous Ciceronianism of the time.

Later Latin Literature

Good Latin poets have been fewer since the Renaissance, but George Buchanan and John Milton are among the exceptions. Among the great scholars whose major works were written in Latin were Thomas More, Baruch Spinoza, Francis Bacon, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, and Isaac Newton. Latin literature, as such, is nearly dead, for its cultivation is limited to the ever-narrowing circles of classicists and to the Roman Catholic Church, which adds new matter to the liturgy only rarely and confines use of extraliturgical Latin to official, nonliterary documents.

Bibliography

See J. W. Duff, A Literary History of Rome (3d ed., repr. 1979); E. J. Kenney, ed., Cambridge History of Classical Literature, Vol. II (1982); J. Sullivan, Literature and Politics in the Age of Nero (1985); B. Baldwin, ed., An Anthology of Later Latin Literature (1987).

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11 of the Best Books and Articles on: Latin Literature

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Collected Papers on Latin Literature » Read Now
by R. G. M. Nisbet, S. J. Harrison. 449 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

This book contains twenty-six articles on a wide range of topics in Latin literature by the eminent scholar and former Professor of Latin at Oxford, Robin Nisbet. Original, stimulating, and at times provocative, this collection represents some of the best in Latin scholarship in recent years.
2.

A History of Medieval Latin Literature » Read Now
by Maurice Helin, Jean Chapman Snow. 132 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...A HISTORY OF Medieval Latin Literature A HISTORY OF Medieval Latin Literature By MAURICE HELIN REVISED EDITION...Index 127 A HISTORY OF Medieval Latin Literature...
3.

The Politics of Latin Literature: Writing, Identity, and Empire in Ancient Rome » Read Now
by Thomas N. Habinek. 234 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

This is the first book to describe the intimate relationship between Latin literature and the politics of ancient Rome. Until now, most scholars have viewed classical Latin literature as a product of aesthetic concerns. Thomas Habinek shows, however, that literature was also a cultural practice that
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This is the first book to describe the intimate relationship between Latin literature and the politics of ancient Rome. Until now, most scholars have viewed classical Latin literature as a product of aesthetic concerns. Thomas Habinek shows, however, that literature was also a cultural practice that emerged from and intervened in the political and social struggles at the heart of the Roman world.
Habinek considers major works by such authors as Cato, Cicero, Horace, Ovid, and Seneca. He shows that, from its beginnings in the late third century b.c. to its eclipse by Christian literature six hundred years later, classical literature served the evolving interests of Roman and, more particularly, aristocratic power. It fostered a prestige dialect, for example; it appropriated the cultural resources of dominated and colonized communities; and it helped to defuse potentially explosive challenges to prevailing values and authority. Literature also drew upon and enhanced other forms of social authority, such as patriarchy, religious ritual, cultural identity, and the aristocratic procedure of self-scrutiny, or "existimatio.
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4.

Portraits: Biographical Representation in the Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire » Read Now
by M. J. Edwards, Simon Swain. 267 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

This collection of essays illustrates the growth of interest in the representation of individuals, which resulted from the changed environment within which Greek and Latin authors worked in late antiquity. The subjects all fall within the period of the Roman empire, and illustrate the importance of...
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This collection of essays illustrates the growth of interest in the representation of individuals, which resulted from the changed environment within which Greek and Latin authors worked in late antiquity. The subjects all fall within the period of the Roman empire, and illustrate the importance of individual personality in literature for an age in which few individuals could hope to achieve political significance.
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5.

The Silent Masters: Latin Literature and Its Censors in the High Middle Ages » Read Now
by Peter Godman. 372 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

In the tension between competing ideas of authority and the urge to literary experiment, writers of the High Middle Ages produced some of their most distinctive achievements. This book examines these themes in the high culture of Western Europe during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, showing how...
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In the tension between competing ideas of authority and the urge to literary experiment, writers of the High Middle Ages produced some of their most distinctive achievements. This book examines these themes in the high culture of Western Europe during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, showing how the intimate links between the writer and the censor, the inquisitor and the intellectual developed from metaphors, at the beginning of the period, to institutions at its end. All Latin texts--from Peter Abelard to Bernard of Clairvaux, from the Archpoet to John of Salisbury and Alan of Lille--are translated into English, and discussed both in terms of their literary qualities and in relation to the cultural history of the High Middle Ages. Not a proto-Renaissance but part of a continuity that reached into the Reformation, the eleventh and twelfth centuries witnessed a transformation of the writer's role. With a combination of literary, philological, and historical methods, Peter Godman sets the work of major intellectuals during this period in a new light.
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6.

Writing down Rome: Satire, Comedy, and Other Offences in Latin Poetry » Read Now
by John Henderson. 374 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Taking particular plays and poems from Roman comic theatre and the genre of Latin satire, this book finds Rome sending up Roman culture - making a mess of drama, jesting at rustic gaucherie, caricaturing the cult of masculine aggression. Writing Down Rome explores the robust poetic of...
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Taking particular plays and poems from Roman comic theatre and the genre of Latin satire, this book finds Rome sending up Roman culture - making a mess of drama, jesting at rustic gaucherie, caricaturing the cult of masculine aggression. Writing Down Rome explores the robust poetic of self-denigration. Henderson's essays celebrate the energetic self-mockery that powers much of Roman poetry. They range widely over comedy, lyric, bucolic, and, in particular, the Roman speciality of satire.
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7.

Powers of Expression, Expressions of Power: Speech Presentation and Latin Literature » Read Now
by Andrew Laird. 366 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Can a speaker's words ever be faithfully reported? History, philosophy, ethnography, political theory, linguistics, and literary criticism all involve debates about discourse and presentation. By drawing from Plato's theory of discourse, the lively analysis of speech presentation in this book...
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Can a speaker's words ever be faithfully reported? History, philosophy, ethnography, political theory, linguistics, and literary criticism all involve debates about discourse and presentation. By drawing from Plato's theory of discourse, the lively analysis of speech presentation in this book provides a coherent and original contribution to these debates.
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8.

Texts of the Passion: Latin Devotional Literature and Medieval Society » Read Now
by Thomas H. Bestul. 266 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Literature, Entire Library

...alk. paper 1. Christian literature, Latin Medieval and modern -- History and criticism. 2. Devotional literature, Latin Medieval and modern -- History...literature of all...
9.

Latin Language and Latin Culture: From Ancient to Modern Times » Read Now
by Joseph Farrell. 148 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

The Latin language is popularly imagined in a number of specific ways: as a masculine language, an imperial language, a classical language, a dead language. This book considers the sources of these metaphors and analyzes their effect on how Latin literature is read. By reading with and more commonly...
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The Latin language is popularly imagined in a number of specific ways: as a masculine language, an imperial language, a classical language, a dead language. This book considers the sources of these metaphors and analyzes their effect on how Latin literature is read. By reading with and more commonly against these metaphors, the book offers a different view of Latin as a language and as a vehicle for cultural practice. The argument ranges over a variety of texts in Latin and texts about Latin from antiquity to the twentieth century.
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10.

A History of Later Latin Literature from the Middle of the Fourth to the End of the Seventeenth Century » Read Now
by F. A. Wright, T. A. Sinclair. 418 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...A HISTORY OF LATER LATIN LITERATURE A HISTORY OF LATER LATIN LITERATURE FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE FOURTH TO THE END...are many excellent histories of classical Latin...
11.

Studies in Magic from Latin Literature » Read Now
by Eugene Tavenner. 160 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...STUDIES IN MAGIC FROM LATIN LITERATURE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS...E.C. STUDIES IN MAGIC FROM LATIN LITERATURE BY EUGENE TAVENNER, PH...treatment of the subject of Magic in...