Topos "locus amoenus" w łacińskiej poezji chrześcijańskiego antyku

Abstract

This paper deals with the topos of locus amoenus in Latin poetry of Christian antiquity. Descriptions of idealized landscape can be found in whole literary tradition from Homer on. In Latin epic poetry Virgil used this device to describe Elysium, which Aeneas enters in the Aeneid. In Virgil’s eclogues locus amoenus is a place of refuge for shepherds from calamities of fate and an alien world. For the farmer in his Georgics it is a reward for honest agricultural work. For Horace it was an escape from the noise of the city. For Christian poets, Prudentius in Cathemerinon, Sedulius in Carmen paschale, Avitus of Vienne, Dracontius, Venantius Fortunatus and other, locus amoenus becomes the biblical paradise in the eschatological sense, or morę generally, salvation. Use of the topos of locus amoenus shows the cultural continuity of antiquity. In Christian poetry this theme is filled with a new content, but the process of thinking and artistic creation remains they share with classical authors.