Introspection and Engagement in Propertius
A Study of Book 3
Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Ancient & Classical, Nonfiction, History, Ancient History
| Author: | Jonathan Wallis | ISBN: | 9781108266314 |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press | Publication: | March 31, 2018 |
| Imprint: | Cambridge University Press | Language: | English |
| Author: | Jonathan Wallis |
| ISBN: | 9781108266314 |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Publication: | March 31, 2018 |
| Imprint: | Cambridge University Press |
| Language: | English |
Propertius re-invents Latin love-elegy in his third collection. Nearly a decade into the Augustan principate, the early counter-cultural impulse of Propertius' first collections was losing its relevance. Challenged by the publication of Horace's Odes, and by the imminent arrival of Virgil's Aeneid, in 23 BCE Propertius produced a radical collection of elegy which critically interrogates elegy's own origins as a genre, and which directly faces off Horatian lyric and Virgilian epic, as part of an ambitious claim to Augustan pre-eminence. But this is no moment of cultural submission. In Book 3, elegy's key themes of love, fidelity, and political independence are rebuilt from the beginning as part of a subtle critique of emerging Augustan mores. This book presents a series of readings of fourteen individual elegies from Propertius Book 3, including nostalgic love poems, an elegiac hymn to Bacchus, and a lament for Marcellus, the recently-dead nephew of Augustus.
Propertius re-invents Latin love-elegy in his third collection. Nearly a decade into the Augustan principate, the early counter-cultural impulse of Propertius' first collections was losing its relevance. Challenged by the publication of Horace's Odes, and by the imminent arrival of Virgil's Aeneid, in 23 BCE Propertius produced a radical collection of elegy which critically interrogates elegy's own origins as a genre, and which directly faces off Horatian lyric and Virgilian epic, as part of an ambitious claim to Augustan pre-eminence. But this is no moment of cultural submission. In Book 3, elegy's key themes of love, fidelity, and political independence are rebuilt from the beginning as part of a subtle critique of emerging Augustan mores. This book presents a series of readings of fourteen individual elegies from Propertius Book 3, including nostalgic love poems, an elegiac hymn to Bacchus, and a lament for Marcellus, the recently-dead nephew of Augustus.
