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Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; 15 October 70 BC21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Rome, ancient Roman poet of the Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the ''Eclogues'' (or ''Bucolics''), the ''Georgics'', and the Epic poetry, epic ''Aeneid''. A number of minor poems, collected in the ''Appendix Vergiliana'', were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars generally regard these works as spurious, with the possible exception of a few short pieces. Already acclaimed in his own lifetime as a classic author, Virgil rapidly replaced Ennius and other earlier authors as a standard school text, and stood as the most popular Latin poet through late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and early modernity, exerting inestimable influence on all subsequent Western literature. Geoffrey Chaucer assigned Virgil a uniquely prominent position among all the celebrities ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georgics
The ''Georgics'' ( ; ) is a poem by Latin poet Virgil, likely published in 29 BCE. As the name suggests (from the Greek language, Greek word , ''geōrgiká'', i.e. "agricultural [things]") the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from being an example of peaceful rural poetry, it is a work characterized by tensions in both theme and purpose. The ''Georgics'' is considered Virgil's second major work, following his ''Eclogues'' and preceding the ''Aeneid''. The poem draws on a variety of prior sources and has influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present. Description and summary The work consists of 2,188 hexameter, hexametric verses divided into four books. The yearly timings by the rising and setting of particular stars were valid for the precession of the equinoxes, precession epoch of Virgil's time, and so are not always valid now. Book One Virgil begins his poem with a dedication to Gaius Maecenas, Maecenas, then a summary of the four books, followed by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aeneid
The ''Aeneid'' ( ; or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan War#Sack of Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Ancient Rome, Romans. Written by the Roman poet Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, the ''Aeneid'' comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed. The hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the ''Iliad''. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas' wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Ancient Rome, Rome and his description as a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous ''pietas'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Appendix Vergiliana
The ''Appendix Vergiliana'' is a collection of Latin poems traditionally ascribed as being the juvenilia (work written as a youth) of Virgil (70–19 BC).Régine ChambertVergil's Epicureanism in his early poems in "Vergil, Philodemus, and the Augustans" 2003: "Vergil's authorship of at least some of the poems in the Appendix is nowadays no longer contested. This is especially true of the Culex ... and also of a collection of short epigrams called the Catalepton." Many of the poems in the Appendix were considered works by Virgil in antiquity. However, recent studies suggest that the Appendix contains a diverse collection of minor poems by various authors from the 1st century AD. Scholars are almost unanimous in considering the works of the ''Appendix'' spurious, primarily on grounds of style, metrics, and vocabulary. Authorship Besides the ''Eclogues,'' the ''Georgics,'' and the ''Aeneid,'' a collection of minor works attributed to Virgil certainly existed by the reign of Ner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eclogues
The ''Eclogues'' (; , ), also called the ''Bucolics'', is the first of the three major works of the Latin poet Virgil. Background Taking as his generic model the Greek bucolic poetry of Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by offering a dramatic and mythic interpretation of revolutionary change at Rome in the turbulent period between roughly 44 and 38 BC. Virgil introduced political clamor largely absent from Theocritus' poems, called idylls ('little scenes' or 'vignettes'), even though erotic turbulence disturbs the "idyllic" landscapes of Theocritus. Virgil's book contains ten pieces, each called not an idyll but an eclogue, from the Greek ('selection', 'extract'). The poems are populated by and large with herdsmen imagined conversing and performing amoebaean singing in rural settings, whether suffering or embracing revolutionary change or happy or unhappy love. Performed with great success on the Roman stage, they feature a mix of visionary politics and e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divine Comedy
The ''Divine Comedy'' (, ) is an Italian narrative poetry, narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun and completed around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of Western literature. The poem's imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval philosophy, medieval worldview as it existed in the Western Christianity, Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan dialect, Tuscan language, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts: ''Inferno (Dante), Inferno'', ''Purgatorio'', and ''Paradiso (Dante), Paradiso''. The poem explores the condition of the soul following death and portrays a vision of divine justice, in which individuals receive appropriate punishment or reward based on their actions.Vallone, Aldo. "Commedia" (trans. Robin Treasure). In: Lansing (ed.), ''The Dante Encyclopedia'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Servius The Grammarian
Servius, distinguished as Servius the Grammarian ( or ), was a late fourth-century and early fifth-century grammarian. He earned a contemporary reputation as the most learned man of his generation in Italy; he authored a set of commentaries on the works of Virgil. These works, ("Exposition on Three Works of Virgil"), ("Commentaries on Virgil"), ("Commentaries on the Works of Vergil"), or ("Commentaries on the Poems of Virgil"), constituted the first incunable to be printed at Florence, by Bernardo Cennini, in 1471. In the ''Saturnalia'' of Macrobius, Servius appears as one of the interlocutors; allusions in that work and a letter from Symmachus to Servius indicate that he was not a convert to Christianity. Name The name Servius also appears as Seruius owing to the unity of the Latin letters V and U from antiquity until as late as the 18th century. Many medieval manuscripts of Servius's commentaries give him the praenomen Marius or Maurus and the cognomen Honoratus. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aelius Donatus
Aelius Donatus (; fl. mid-fourth century AD) was a Roman grammarian and teacher of rhetoric. He once taught Jerome, an early Christian Church father who is most known for his translation of the Bible into Latin, known as the Latin Vulgate. Newer revisions of the Vulgate are still in common use by the Catholic Church. Works He was the author of a number of professional works, of which several are extant: *Ars maior – A commentary on Latin grammar. * Ars minor – A commentary on parts of Latin Speech. * Commentvm Terenti, Publii Terentii Comoediae Sex with preface de tragoedia et comoedia (Commentary on Terence, Six Comedies of Terence with the preface About Tragedies and Comedies) – A commentary on the playwright Terence and all six of his plays, probably compiled from other commentaries. The preface is a commentary on the "proper" structures of Tragedies and Comedies by Donatus titled, "About Comedies and Tragedies." It has never been translated to English as parts are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pastoral Poetry
The pastoral genre of literature, art, or music depicts an idealised form of the shepherd's lifestyle – herding livestock around open areas of land according to the seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. The target audience is typically an urban one. A ''pastoral'' is a work of this genre. A piece of music in the genre is usually referred to as a pastorale. The genre is also known as bucolic, from the Greek , from , meaning a cowherd. Literature Pastoral literature in general Pastoral is a mode of literature in which the author employs various techniques to place the complex life into a simple one. Paul Alpers distinguishes pastoral as a mode rather than a genre, and he bases this distinction on the recurring attitude of power; that is to say that pastoral literature holds a humble perspective toward nature. Thus, pastoral as a mode occurs in many types of literature (poetry, drama, etc.) as well as genres (most notably the pastoral elegy). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virgil Mosaic
The Mosaic of Virgil is a mosaic found on the site of the ancient Hadrumetum and currently preserved in Bardo National Museum (Tunis), Bardo National Museum in Tunis, where it constitutes one of its key pieces. It is currently the oldest portrait of the Latin poet Virgil. History The mosaic was discovered in 1896 in a garden of Sousse and constitutes the emblem of a larger mosaic. Description It is included in a frame of 1.22-meter side. Central character It represents the Ancient Rome, Roman poet Virgil, dressed in a white toga decorated with embroidery. The poet holds in his hand, which is placed on his knees, a roll of parchment on which are written extracts of the Aeneid, more precisely the eighth verse: ''"Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso, quidve..."'' Muses He is surrounded by the muses Clio and Melpomene: Clio, the muse of history, is placed on the left of the poet and shown reading, while Melpomene, the muse of tragedy, is holding a tragic mask. Interpretat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latin Literature
Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature flourished for the next six centuries. The classical era of Latin literature can be roughly divided into several periods: #Early Latin literature, Early Latin literature, #The Golden Age, The Golden Age, #The Imperial Period, The Imperial Period and Latin literature#Latin in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Early Modernity, Late Antiquity. Latin was the language of the ancient Romans as well as being the ''lingua franca'' of Western and Central Europe throughout the Middle Ages. Latin literature features the work of Roman authors, such as Cicero, Virgil, Ovid and Horace, but also includes the work of European writers after the fall of the Empire; from religious writers like Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas (1225–1274), to secular writers like ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of effective sole rule in 27 BC. The Western Roman Empire, western empire collapsed in 476 AD, but the Byzantine Empire, eastern empire lasted until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. By 100 BC, the city of Rome had expanded its rule from the Italian peninsula to most of the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and beyond. However, it was severely destabilised by List of Roman civil wars and revolts, civil wars and political conflicts, which culminated in the Wars of Augustus, victory of Octavian over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and the subsequent conquest of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt. In 27 BC, the Roman Senate granted Octavian overarching military power () and the new title of ''Augustus (title), Augustus'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epic Poetry
In poetry, an epic is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. With regard to oral tradition, epic poems consist of formal speech and are usually learnt word for word, and are contrasted with narratives that consist of everyday speech where the performer has the license to recontextualize the story to a particular audience, often to a younger generation. Influential epics that have shaped Western literature and culture include Homer's ''Iliad'' and '' Odyssey''; Virgil's '' Aeneid''; and the anonymous '' Beowulf'' and '' Epic of Gilgamesh''. The genre has inspired the adjective '' epic'' as well as derivative works in other mediums (such as epic films) that evoke or emulate the characteristics of epics. Etymology The English word ''epic'' comes from Latin , which itself comes from the Ancient Greek adject ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
