Category: Poetry
Chapters VI and VII, on Roman Comedy, are entirely new. I have enlarged the account formerly given of Lucilius in Chapter VIII, and modified the Review of the First Period, contained in Chapter IX. The short introductory chapter to the Second Period is new. The four chapters o...
Chapters VI and VII, on Roman Comedy, are entirely new. I have enlarged the account formerly given of Lucilius in Chapter VIII, and modified the Review of the First Period, cont...
2. CHAPTER I.GENERAL CHARACTER OF ROMAN POETRY. PAGE Recent change in the estimate of Roman Poetry 1 Want of originality 2 As compared with Greek Poetry 3 " " with Roman Oratory and History...
3. CHAPTER II.Niebuhr's theory of a Ballad-Poetry 28 The Saturnian metre 29 Ritual Hymns 31 Prophetic verses 33 Fescennine verses 34 Saturae 35 Gnomic verses 36 Commemorative verses 37 Infere...
4. CHAPTER III.Contact with Greece after capture of Tarentum 47 First period of Roman literature 49 Forms of Poetry during this period 50 Livius Andronicus 51 Cn. Naevius, his life 52 Dramas 5...
5. CHAPTER IV.Importance of Ennius 62 Notices of his life 63 Influences affecting his career 64 Italian birth-place 64 Greek education 65 Service in Roman army 66 Historical importance of his...
6. CHAPTER V.Popularity of early Roman Tragedy 120 Partial adaptation of Athenian drama 121 Inability to reproduce its pure Hellenic character 123 Nearer approach to the spirit of Euripides...
7. CHAPTER VI.Flourishing era of Roman Comedy 152 How far any claim to originality? 153 Disparaging judgment of later Roman critics 154 Connection with earlier Saturae 155 Naevius and Plautus...
8. CHAPTER VII.Comedy between the time of Plautus and Terence 201 Caecilius Statius 202 Scipionic Circle 203 Complete Hellenising of Roman Comedy 204 Conflicting accounts of life of Terence 20...
9. CHAPTER VIII.Independent origin of Roman satire 217 Essentially Roman in form and spirit 219 " " in its political and censorial function 220 Personal and miscellaneous character of early sat...
10. CHAPTER IX.Common aspects in the lives of poets in the second century B.C. 247 Popular and national character of their works 250 Political condition of the time reflected in its literature...
11. CHAPTER X.Dearth of poetical works during the next half century 263 Literary taste confined to the upper classes 265 Great advance in Latin prose writing 266 Influence of this on the styl...
12. CHAPTER XI.Little known of him from external sources 274 Examination of Jerome's statement 275 Inferences as to his national and social position 281 Relation to Memmius 282 Impression of t...
13. CHAPTER XII.Three aspects of the poem 300 General scope of the argument 301 Analysis of the poem 303 Question as to its unfinished condition 313 What is the value of the argument? 316 Weakn...
14. CHAPTER XIII.General character of Greek epicureanism 348 Prevalence at Rome in the last age of the Republic 350 New type of epicureanism in Lucretius 352 Forms of evil against which his teac...
15. CHAPTER XIV.Artistic defects of the work 376 " arising from the nature of the subject 377 " from inequality in its execution 378 Intensity of feeling pervading the argument 380 Cumulative f...
16. CHAPTER XV.Contrast to the poetry of Lucretius 399 The poetry of youth 400 Accidental preservation of his poems 401 Principle of their arrangement 402 Vivid personal revelation afforded by...
17. CHAPTER I.A great fluctuation of opinion has taken place, among scholars and critics, in regard to the worth of Latin poetry. From the revival of learning till comparatively a recent peri...
18. CHAPTER II.The first productive literary impulse was communicated to the Roman mind by the Greek slave, Livius Andronicus, who, in the year B.C. 240--one year after the end of the First Pu...
19. CHAPTER III.The historical event which first brought the Romans into familiar contact with the Greeks, was the war with Pyrrhus and with Tarentum, the most powerful and flourishing among th...
20. CHAPTER IV.The impulse given to Latin literature by Naevius was mainly in two directions, that of comedy and of a rude epic poetry, drawing its subjects from Roman traditions and contempor...
21. CHAPTER V.The powerful impulse given to Roman tragedy by Ennius was sustained till about the beginning of the first century B.C. first by his nephew M. Pacuvius and after him by L. Accius...
22. ii. 991--[Footnote 141: 'Philosophers say that Fortune is mad, blind, and senseless, and represent her as set on a round rolling stone. They say that she is mad, because she is harsh, fi...
23. CHAPTER VI.The era in which Roman epic and tragic poetry arose was also the flourishing era of Roman comedy. A later generation looked back on the age of Ennius and Plautus as an age of gr...
24. CHAPTER VII.The names of five or six comic dramatists are known, who fill the space of eighteen years between the death of Plautus and the representation of the earliest play of Terence, th...
25. CHAPTER VIII.Poetical satire, as a branch of cultivated literature, arose out of the social and political circumstances, and the moral and literary conditions of Roman life in the last half...
26. Book xxvi,--contrasts the defeat of M. Popillius Laenas in 138 B.C. with the subsequent successes of Scipio. In another fragment Lucilius charges Scipio with affectation for pronouncing the...
27. Book xxvi. to the Spanish wars and to the 'exploits of Cornelius,' andthe statement of his reasons for coming forward as an author, render it not improbable that this Book was the earliest in order of composition. It was in this Book that he appea...
28. CHAPTER IX.The poetic literature reviewed in the last five chapters is the product of the second century B.C. The latest writers of any importance belonging to the earlier period of the po...
29. CHAPTER X.An interval of nearly half a century elapsed between the death of Lucilius and the appearance of the poem of Lucretius. During this period no poetical works of any value were pr...
30. CHAPTER XI.It is in keeping with the isolated and independent position which Lucretius occupies in literature, that so little is known of his life. The two kinds of information available f...
31. CHAPTER XII.The peculiarity of the poem of Lucretius, that which makes it unique in literature, is the fact that it is a long sustained argument in verse. The prosaic title of the poem, 'De...
32. CHAPTER XIII.Lucretius does not enforce his moral teaching on the systematic plan on which his physical philosophy is discussed. His view of human life is sometimes presented as it arises in...
33. CHAPTER XIV.It remains to consider the poem of Lucretius as a work of literary art and genius. Much indeed of what may be said on the subject of his genius has necessarily been anticipated...
34. CHAPTER XV.Lucretius and Catullus were regarded by their contemporaries as the greatest poets of the last age of the Republic[547]. They alone represent the poetry of that time to the mode...