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1 results

  • 20 - Love elegy

  • from PART IV - THE AGE OF AUGUSTUS
  • Edited by E. J. Kenney, W. V. Clausen
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Classical Literature
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 March 1982, pp 405-419

  • Summary

    The elegiac distich appears as a fully developed poetic form in Greece in the seventh century BC. This chapter concentrates on the famous Augustan love-poets. The love elegy or the book of love elegies may be considered as a creation of the Augustan age, though Catullus is sometimes included. His poem would seem to represent the prototype of the Augustan love elegy though love is only one theme among many; it is interwoven most skilfully with the themes of friendship, the loss of his brother, the Trojan War. The elegiac poets of the Augustan age, beginning with Cornelius Gallus, write whole books of elegies. Albius Tibullus' friendship with the great statesman M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus is one of the main themes of his poetry. The Corpus Tibullianum may be considered an anthology of poems written by members of that circle, probably published after Messalla's death.