The Cambridge Companion to Latin Love Elegy

Leading scholars present the genre of Latin love elegy, its poets, features and influence on the history of Western literature.

Thea S. Thorsen (Edited by)

9780521765367, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 November 2013

452 pages
23.4 x 15.7 x 2.4 cm, 0.84 kg

'[Thorsen]'s Companion is a gem in a celebrated series. All students of Latin poetry and its afterlife will want to consult this volume.' Lee Fratantuono, The Classical Review

Latin love elegy is one of the most important poetic genres in the Augustan era, also known as the golden age of Roman literature. This volume brings together leading scholars from Australia, Europe and North America to present and explore the Greek and Roman backdrop for Latin love elegy, the individual Latin love elegists (both the canonical and the non-canonical), their poems and influence on writers in later times. The book is designed as an accessible introduction for the general reader interested in Latin love elegy and the history of love and lament in Western literature, as well as a collection of critically stimulating essays for students and scholars of Latin poetry and of the classical tradition.

Part I. History and Context: 1. Greek elegy Richard Hunter
2. Latin precursors Federica Bessone
Part II. The Latin Love Elegists: 3. Caius Cornelius Gallus: 'the inventor of Latin love elegy' Emmanuelle Raymond
4. Tibullus in first place (with Lygdamus) Parshia Lee-Stecum
5. 'The woman' Mathilde Skoie
6. Propertius Alison Keith
7. Ovid the love elegist Thea S. Thorsen
Part III. The Elegiac World: 8. Time, place and political background Stephen J. Harrison
9. The poeta-amator, nequitia and recusatio Alison Sharrock
10. The puella: accept no substitutions! Paul Allen Miller
11. Seruitium amoris: the interplay of dominance, gender and poetry Laurel Fulkerson
12. Militia amoris: fighting in love's army Megan O. Drinkwater
Part IV. The Ends of Latin Love Elegy: 13. Loves and elegy Roy Gibson
14. Latin love elegy and other genres Lisa Piazzi
15. Breaking the rules: elegy, matrons and mime John F. Miller
Part V. Receptions: 16. Latin love elegy in late antiquity: Maximian Roger P. H. Green
17. The love elegy in medieval Latin literature (pseudo-Ovidiana and Ovidian imitations) Marek Thue Kretschmer
18. Renaissance Latin love elegy Luke B. T. Houghton
19. English elegies of the sixteenth and seventeenth century Victoria Moul
20. Translation and imitation of classical elegy in the French eighteenth century Stéphanie Loubère
21. Russian elegists and Latin lovers in the long eighteenth century Andrew Kahn
22. German elegies: from Baroque beginnings and classical culminations to twentieth-century Hollywood Theodore Ziolkowski
Part VI. Metre: 23. The Latin elegiac couplet Thea S. Thorsen.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], European history [HBJD], Literature: history & criticism [DS]