Latin Poems Research Articles

Rome Personified, Rome Epitomized: Representations of Rome in the Poetry of the Early Fifth Century

THE LAST YEARS OF THE FOURTH AND THE BEGINNING of the fifth century (the reigns of Theodosius and his sons) mark a crucial stage in the Christianization of Rome. 1 The hold of the city and all it stood for on the imagination of the ruling classes was as strong as ever. But Theodosian legislation had definitively established the dominance of Christianity in the empire, and even in Rome the aristocracy was becoming progres- sively more Christian. 2 These changing circumstances find expression in the way Rome was represented in contemporary literature. While still indebted to the traditional language of the laudes Romae and to well- established literary traditions, the authors of the period find new ways to inflect the image of Rome that mirror their differing religious and cul- tural allegiances. Three poets make the largest contributions to that evolution in the representation of Rome. Claudius Claudianus was born in Alexandria (c. 370) but came to Rome in 394. His first Latin poem celebrated the consuls of 395, Probinus and Olybrius, but thereafter most of his poems served the interests of his patron and the emperor Honorius' chief min- ister, the Vandal general Stilicho. Of particular importance for the repre- sentation of Rome are his consular panegyrics, for the consulships of Honorius (396, 398, and 404) and Stilicho (400), and his two historical epics on the campaigns against the African warlord Gildo (De bello Gildonico 398) and against Alaric in 401-402 (De bello Getico 402). Claudian wrote his last dated poem in 404. Nothing is heard of him after that date and it is likely he died soon thereafter. Claudian's Christian contemporary, Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, was born, according to the verse preface he wrote to his collected works, in 348. After a successful career in the imperial administration, he

Un poema inédito de Aquiles Estaço

In this paper we study an unedited Latin poem written by the Portuguese humanist Aquiles Estaço (1524-1581). First of all, we have prepared its edition, following the testimonies of the two manuscripts in which it has been preserved. This Latin poem, along with an oratio funebris and a Greek epigram, was probably delivered by Estaco in the funerals for Sebastian I king of Portugal in the church of the Gesù (Rome). In order to reach an accurate interpretation of the poem, we have analysed it, trying to reconstruct its historical context and its most relevant literary aspects.

Daedaleum iter: Studi sulla poesia e la poetica di Angelo Poliziano by Attilio Bettinzoli Silvae by Angelo Poliziano , Francesco Bausi Poesie volgari by Angelo Poliziano , Francesco Bausi (review)

MLR, 96.I, 200I MLR, 96.I, 200I clear that his definition of 'caesural'accent in the alexandrine (p. I II) implies an admissionof the metricalstatusof non-group-final word-accent, sincein the Nerval text he identifiesa 'caesural'accent that cannot by any criterionbe group-final: Danscemondeoulavieeclateentoutechose, A A A A A (A= Gouvard'smarkingof accented vowels). Although there is no way of claiming that that the accented vowel of vi(e),the sixth syllableof the alexandrine,is followed by a syntactical boundary (it is the subject of the verb that follows), Gouvard nevertheless accords its word-accent metrical status, thus implicitly admitting the possible metrical status of accented vowels within as opposed to at the end of the syntacticalunit. This opens the door to acknowledgingthe potential metricalstatus of other such vowels in the verse-line, a move that fundamentally contradicts the party-linehe presentson page 87. Followingchaptersdeal with rhyme and strophic organisation. The book givesthe impressionthatFrenchversificationis aproblem-freedomain, a view some may believe to be dangerously premature. It is to be hoped that its young readerswill approachit in a healthilycriticalframeof mind. HERTFORD COLLEGE, OXFORD ROGER PENSOM Daedaleumiter:Studisullapoesiae lapoeticadiAngeloPoliziano. By ATTILIOBETTINZOLI. (Biblioteca di Lettere italiane, 5I) Florence: Olschki. I995. 4I4 pp. 79,000 lire. Silvae. By ANGELOPOLIZIANO.Ed. and trans. by FRANCESCO BAUSI. Florence: Olschki. I996. liv + 400 pp. 94,000 lire. Poesie volgari. By ANGELOPOLIZIANO. Ed. by FRANCESCO BAUSI. Manziana: Vecchiarelli. I997. Vol. I: Testi. lx + I48 pp.; Vol. II: Commento. 334pp. 80,ooo lire. Angelo Poliziano has received considerable scholarlyattention in recent years (not least because of the majoranniversaryin 1994, 500 years afterhis death), attention that has been as intense as it has been merited, given the literaryand philological significanceof this famous humanist. Important general considerationwas paid to his multifariousoutput (in the major I994 conference held in Montepulciano, and in the overview provided by Mario Martelli's AngeloPoliziano.Storiae metastoria (Lecce: Conte, 1995)), but the more recent studies under review here focus on Poliziano's poetic works. Francesco Bausi provides both a major commentary on the vernacular poetry, and an invaluable critical edition, commentary and translation of those mature Latin poems, the Silvae, which were written as introductionsto the coursesthe humanistheldin the Universityof Florencebetween 1482 and I486. These works are complemented by the systematic collection of Attilio Bettinzoli'sground-breakingresearcheson the Silvaethemselves,the basis of his reconstructionof Poliziano'swhole poetics. An approach based on the traditionalchronology of Poliziano's oeuvresuggests we deal firstwith the vernacularworks,which Bausi confirmswere written 'in anni precedenti il I480'. His sensible introduction is in line with Martelli'swell-known interpretation,seeing the poems as a product of the period of greatestneoplatonic fervourin Florence underFicino, as well as conformingto Lorenzo'sprogrammeof enlivening a literarylanguage which once it had been purifiedcould be presented 'come lingua sovra-regionale,dotata di forza espansiva'.Naturally, on the textual clear that his definition of 'caesural'accent in the alexandrine (p. I II) implies an admissionof the metricalstatusof non-group-final word-accent, sincein the Nerval text he identifiesa 'caesural'accent that cannot by any criterionbe group-final: Danscemondeoulavieeclateentoutechose, A A A A A (A= Gouvard'smarkingof accented vowels). Although there is no way of claiming that that the accented vowel of vi(e),the sixth syllableof the alexandrine,is followed by a syntactical boundary (it is the subject of the verb that follows), Gouvard nevertheless accords its word-accent metrical status, thus implicitly admitting the possible metrical status of accented vowels within as opposed to at the end of the syntacticalunit. This opens the door to acknowledgingthe potential metricalstatus of other such vowels in the verse-line, a move that fundamentally contradicts the party-linehe presentson page 87. Followingchaptersdeal with rhyme and strophic organisation. The book givesthe impressionthatFrenchversificationis aproblem-freedomain, a view some may believe to be dangerously premature. It is to be hoped that its young readerswill approachit in a healthilycriticalframeof mind. HERTFORD COLLEGE, OXFORD ROGER PENSOM Daedaleumiter:Studisullapoesiae lapoeticadiAngeloPoliziano. By ATTILIOBETTINZOLI. (Biblioteca di Lettere italiane, 5I) Florence: Olschki. I995. 4I4 pp. 79,000 lire. Silvae. By ANGELOPOLIZIANO.Ed. and trans. by FRANCESCO BAUSI. Florence: Olschki. I996. liv + 400 pp. 94,000 lire. Poesie volgari. By ANGELOPOLIZIANO. Ed. by FRANCESCO BAUSI. Manziana: Vecchiarelli. I997. Vol. I: Testi...

Notes on Johnson's Latin Poetry

In recent times Johnson's Latin poems have been ignored by most academic publishing houses. The Preface to the second Oxford edition tells of difficulties and delays; but in the end, with the help of H. W. Gar rod, the Press produced the best available text. Yet it was unrealistic to print a text without a translation in 1974 or indeed at any time since World War I. The Yale edition of Johnson's Latin and Greek verse (1964) made an attempt to deal with the problem, but the result was unsatisfactory. Its literal translations sometimes contained mistakes, other versions were sometimes too free to be helpful, and in the case of the epigrams the editors were content simply to print the Loeb version of the Greek. Barry Baldwin, in his edition The Latin and Greek Poems of Samuel Johnson (1995), deserves credit for offering straightforward literal versions throughout. In my review of Baldwin's work in Translation and Literature, 5 (1996), 127-32, 1 made some comments about the interpretation of these poems. Here I offer a few notes on the text, based on the three principal modern editions, as follows:

Milton and the Tangles of Neaera's Hair: The Making of the 1645 Poems

Tracing the development of Milton's double volume, the author reveals how the Latin poems complement the English works and reveal the personal, political and cultural crises Milton was undergoing in the late 1630's.

FIELDING'S LATIN POEM: A CORRECTION

Journal Article FIELDING'S LATIN POEM: A CORRECTION Get access HUGH AMORY HUGH AMORY Brookline, Massachusets Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume 46, Issue 3, September 1999, Pages 356-b–358, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/46-3-356b Published: 01 September 1999

WORD-PLAY AND POLITICAL SATIRE: SOLVING THE RIDDLE OF THE TEXT OF "JEZEBEL"

The learning and scrutiny that Jan Ziolkowski's book-length edition, translation, and commentary has lavished on the 141-line Latin poem given the modern title Jezebel, after its main, and only named speaker, display a peculiarly enigmatic niche of medieval poetics.1 Extant in a single, late eleventh- or early twelfth-century copy, the poem - a debate, which centrally frames the defiant sensuality of the paradigmatic female sinner in Christian culture - is identifiably from eleventh-century Normandy, probably the episcopal court at Rouen in the early part of the century since it is associated in the manuscript and by style and themes with the Latin satires known to be by Warner of Rouen. But otherwise it remains shrouded in uncertainties of occasion, author, and, especially in its opening lines, original text and meaning. Ziolkowski's edition compellingly displays the dense allusiveness of this brief poem, most of whose lines include both a brief question by a pious Christian and a tart answer by the blasphemous and obscene Jezebel, who often twists the language of her interlocutor. Ziolkowski includes in his claim for the poem's intellectual and literary subtlety the first seven lines, which are so difficult and miscopied that Peter Dronke, who first brought the poem to general attention, thought them mere pen trials, copied with the rest simply because the first line included Jezebel's name, in a clumsy effort by the 'somewhat foolish copyist' to connect je.ebel to the following poem, which Dronke calls Semiramis. Dronke considered this second poem much worthier of close attention: in it, another sexually scandalous woman, this time a figure from classical antiquity who has coupled with Jupiter in the form of a bull, defends her liaison.2 Ziolkowski retorts that the opening lines of Jezebel are 'essential as a preamble ... In them, the author asserts his right to poetic license ... by drawing an analogy between his versifying and the activity of artists and artisans.3 And throughout a poem in which Dronke found a monotonously predictable assertion of Jezebel's shamelessness, Ziolkowski finds a series of expanding hermencutic challenges: 'each half line in the poem is a challenge to the hearer or reader, first to intuit its meanings in itself, then to piece together the relationships between it and its matching half line, and finally to place the line as a whole within the context of the lines surrounding it.'4 Ziolkowski's hypothesis of an intellectually challenging, unified purpose in the poem is inspiring, and his results broadly confirm his claim. General questions about the entire work still linger, however, regarding its circumstances and significance, even whether and how it was amusing to its original readers.5 And despite Ziolkowski's textual emendations and speculative explanations, the opening seven lines remain the hardest in the poem. I believe I can restore their text and explain their meaning more plausibly than he has, and can show that they are far more significant for the rest of Jezebel, and even Semiramis, than he or Dronke claim. The arguments for restoring the first four lines are, 1 believe, very secure; some problems remain in the final lines that require more speculation. My conjectural emendation to explain those lines is perhaps rasher than anything Ziolkowski proposes, but it suggests cogency both for Jezebel as a whole and the poem Semiramis that follows it, for it displays a mordant political satire that encompasses both. If my argument is right, the 'foolish copyist' who simply distinguished these poems as Liber Primus and Liber Secundus was making no mistake at all, even though he deliberately effaced the original target of the satire, just as he inadvertently ruined some of the poet's most subtle verbal wit. I present the opening lines first as they appear in the manuscript as transcribed by Ziolkowski (Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, lat. 8121A), then the text with Ziolkowski's emendations, then his translation of his emended text. …

A letter of Marcus Antonius Kappus to Eusebius Franciscus Kino (Sonora in 1690)

The life and work of the Slovene Jesuit, Marcus Antonius Kappus (1657 -1717) who, three centuries ago, worked as a missionary in Sonora, north-west Mexico, has, in recent years, been the subject of several short studies in Slovenia. In this journal, Professor Janez Stanonik has, so far, published five letters which Kappus sent home to his relatives and friends, and one letter which he sent to hi s friend in Vienna, as well as a study on the collection of poems (276 chronograms) in Latin, which Kappus published in Mexico City, in 1708, entitled IHS. Enthusiasmus sive solemnes ludi poetici. Prompted by the above publications, the author of this paper spent a month in Sonora while journeying in Mexico in 1991. In Archivo General de la Nación (the general Mexican archives) in Mexico City, he happened to find another letter written by Marcus Antonius Kappus.

A letter of Marcus Antonius Kappus to Eusebius Franciscus Kino (Sonora in 1690)

The life and work of the Slovene Jesuit, Marcus Antonius Kappus (1657 -1717) who, three centuries ago, worked as a missionary in Sonora, north-west Mexico, has, in recent years, been the subject of several short studies in Slovenia. In this journal, Professor Janez Stanonik has, so far, published five letters which Kappus sent home to his relatives and friends, and one letter which he sent to hi s friend in Vienna, as well as a study on the collection of poems (276 chronograms) in Latin, which Kappus published in Mexico City, in 1708, entitled IHS. Enthusiasmus sive solemnes ludi poetici. Prompted by the above publications, the author of this paper spent a month in Sonora while journeying in Mexico in 1991. In Archivo General de la Nación (the general Mexican archives) in Mexico City, he happened to find another letter written by Marcus Antonius Kappus.

Tracing T. S. Eliot's Spirit: Essays on his Poetry and Thought.

T. S. Eliot's lifelong quest for a world of the spirit is the theme of this book by leading Eliot scholar A. David Moody. The first four essays in the collection map Eliot's spiritual geography: the American taproot of his poetry, his profound engagement with the philosophy and religion of India, his near and yet detached relations with England, and his problematic cultivation of a European mind. At the centre of the collection is a study of the Latin poem Pervigilium Veneris, a fragment of which figures enigmatically in the concluding lines of The Waste Land. The third part of the collection is a set of five investigations of Eliot's poems, dealing particularly with The Waste Land, Ash Wednesday and Four Quartets, and attending to how they express and shape what he called 'the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being'.

Notes on the Latin Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

The fourth edition of Hopkins's poems (first published in 191 8) appeared in 1967, edited by W. H. Gardner and N. H. MacKenzie; it contained translations of nearly all of the Latin poems, translations for which (as stated in the Introduction, p. lx) B. H. P. Farrer was largely responsible. In 1986 Catherine Phillips produced an edition in the Oxford Authors series in which the 1967 translations were reproduced, most of them either unchanged or with only minor changes but a few with extensive revision. In 1990 appeared the definitive Clarendon Poetical Works, edited by Norman H. MacKenzie, for which nearly all of the Latin pieces were 'freshly translated' (p. vii) by C. G. Hardie and the remaining few by other scholars. In the notes which follow I designate each of these three editions by its date of publication. The numbering of the poems is MacKenzie's. As a writer of Latin verse Hopkins is unremarkable; many of his contemporaries, the product (like him) of English public schools and the ancient universities, could do much better. I doubt whether the awkwardnesses and infelicities of his Latin can reasonably be attributed to that deliberate 'avoidance of commonplace syntax' (1990 edition, p. vii) which characterizes his English poetry.

Aspects de la didactique du Latin au XIXe siècle en France et échos de sa réception par les élèves

We have chosen in this article on the teaching of Latin in France in the nineteenth century to tackle the Latin essays in verse, which students then had to write from the age of fourteen, a practice which was only suppressed in 1880. To help them in this task, the young versifiers could make use of two types of books: poetical dictionaries, the so-calledGradus ad Parnassum, and Latin prosodies. The Gradus provided for each word the words they occur with (their collocations), their synonyms, as well as circumlocutions and, in each case, indications of syllable length. The prosodies offered, in addition to the rules of versification, a great variety of graded exercises meant to teach students how to write all sorts of poems. We have focused on three prosodies that were in common use for several decades and had numerous re-editions and reprints. The artificiality and the drudgery of such writing tasks in the form of hexameters or distichs, for example, could but put students off, even those who were most successful at it. We have found echoes in the writings of Stendhal and of Jules Valles, among others, of the hours spent laboriously writing Latin poems on subjects as anecdotical as “the drowning of a fly in a bowl of milk” or “the death of a parrot”.

Notes on the Latin Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

Notes on the Latin Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

An Anonymous Latin Poem on the Cardinal Virtues

An Anonymous Latin Poem on the Cardinal Virtues

The Latin and Greek Poems of Samuel Johnson: Text, Translation and Commentary. By Barry Baldwin. Pp. ix+299. London: Duckworth, 1995. Hb. £55.

<i>The Latin and Greek Poems of Samuel Johnson: Text, Translation and Commentary</i>. By Barry Baldwin. Pp. ix+299. London: Duckworth, 1995. Hb. £55.

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, Ludus Heliconius and other Latin poems. Edited with introduction, translation and commentary by Hans Helander, Uppsala, Almqvist &amp; Wiksell International, 1995, 255 pp.

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, Ludus Heliconius and other Latin poems. Edited with introduction, translation and commentary by Hans Helander, Uppsala, Almqvist &amp; Wiksell International, 1995, 255 pp.

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, Ludus Heliconius and other Latin poems. Edited with introduction, translation and commentary by Hans Helander, Uppsala, Almqvist &amp; Wiksell International, 1995, 255 pp.

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, Ludus Heliconius and other Latin poems. Edited with introduction, translation and commentary by Hans Helander, Uppsala, Almqvist &amp; Wiksell International, 1995, 255 pp.

A Latin Poem on St. Hilda and Whitby Abbey

A Latin Poem on St. Hilda and Whitby Abbey

The Latin and Greek Poems of Samuel Johnson: Text, Translation and Commentary. By Barry Baldwin. Pp. ix+299. London: Duckworth, 1995. Hb. £55.

<i>The Latin and Greek Poems of Samuel Johnson: Text, Translation and Commentary</i>. By Barry Baldwin. Pp. ix+299. London: Duckworth, 1995. Hb. £55.

A possible date for Aldhelm's 'Letter to Heahfrith'

In an earlier issue of this journal I edited Aldhelm's 'Letter to Heahfrith', a polemic composition designed to dissuade a young Englishman from study in Ireland by extolling Theodore and Hadrian and flamboyantly displaying the form of learning inculcat­ ed in their school at Canterbury. ' In implying that the new English learning superseded the older Irish tradition Aldhelm quoted respect­ fully at the beginning of the letter the diction of the finest Irish Latin poem, Altus Prosator, perhaps by Virgilius Maro Grammaticus. At the end of the letter in the words