CONSPECTUS OF LATIN LITERATURE

Transcriber’s Note: An image of the original table is available by downloading the HTML version of the book from Project Gutenberg.
DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE. CHIEF REPRESENTATIVES. DATE. CHIEF WORKS. THEIR RELATION TO GREEK LITERATURE. SOME INFLUENCES ON FOREIGN TRIBUTARIES TO ENGLISH LITERATURE. SOME EFFECTS ON ENGLISH WRITERS.
LATIN NAME. ENGLISH NAME.
Tragic Drama Gnaeus Naevius Naevius fl. 230 B.C. Tragedies (only fragments extant). Crudely translated from the Greek, chiefly Euripides.
Quintus Ennius Ennius fl. 200 B.C.
Lucius Annaeus SENECA SENECA ob. A.D. 65 Tragedies, e.g., Medea, Hippolytus, etc. Imitating Greek subjects, metres, and treatment (chorus, etc.); but more rhetorical, epigrammatic, and moralizing. Served as type for Italian Renaissance drama and for the French declamatory tragedy of Corneille, Racine, etc. Little effect on English drama. Addison’s Cato the best instance of attempt at the Roman “classical.”
Comic Drama Titus Maccius PLAUTUS PLAUTUS fl. 210 B.C. Comedies, e.g., Aulularia, Menaechmi (20 extant). From Middle and New comedy, chiefly Menander; almost mere adaptations, but broader and rougher. The scene is always in Greek cities. Type for Italian comedy of Renaissance. Great influence on Molière, whose L’Avare is from the Aulularia, and his Amphitryon from Amphitruo. Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors is from Plautus’s Menaechmi. Dryden’s Amphitryon through Molière from Plautus. So Fielding’s The Miser = L’Avare from Aulularia. French comedy of intrigue (from Plautus and Terence) reproduced in Congreve, Farquhar, etc.
Publius TERENTIUS Afer TERENCE fl. 160 B.C. Comedies, e.g., Phormio, Adelphi, etc. (6 extant). As with Plautus, but less boisterous. As with Plautus. Molière’s École des Maris is from the Adelphi, and Les Fourberies de Scapin from the Phormio. English comedy of intrigue, after the Restoration.
Epic Verse Quintus Ennius Ennius fl. 200 B.C. Epic (on Roman history and legend) called Annales. Copies the Homeric hexameter and borrows the Olympic deities. Called the “Roman Homer,” but crude and inartistic.
Publius VERGILIUS Maro VIRGIL lived 70-19 B.C. AENEID (epic of Aeneas, legendary founder of Roman people). Copies Odyssey in first six books (wanderings), and Iliad in last six (battles); borrows images and incidents from all Greek writers. But more descriptive, philosophical, and fastidious of expression. The basis for subsequent epics. Utilized by Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, etc., in Italy. Model for the French epic, e.g., Voltaire’s Henriade. Translated by Gawain Douglas (1513), Dryden, etc. Very important for Milton’s Paradise Lost, Spenser’s Faerie Queene, and to all modern poets of classical training. See Tennyson’s poem, “To Virgil.”
Marcus Annaeus LUCANUS Lucan lived A.D. 39-65 Pharsalia (epic of civil wars between Caesar and Pompey). Departing further from Greek directness. Cleverness in rhetoric, epigram, description, satire, etc., aimed at. Fondness for details of horror. Two favourite writers in the early middle ages. Statius affected by Dante and Boccaccio (who founds his Teseide upon him). Lucan and “Stace” were among the chief Latin reading of Chaucer’s day. [The Knight’s Tale (of Palamon and Arcite, modernized by Dryden) is from the Thebaid.] Comparatively little read in modern times. Addison’s Campaign has clear traces of Lucan; so has Drayton’s Barons’ Wars.
Publius Papinius STATIUS Statius (“Stace” in Chaucer) fl. A.D. 70 Thebaid (epic of Thebes and its heroes). Clever and facile verse: elegant simile, etc., of more importance than the matter.
Lyric Verse Gaius Valerius CATULLUS Catullus lived 84-54 B.C. Poems (odes, epigrams, and occasional pieces—especially love-poems to “Lesbia”). Imitates metre and style of Greek lyrists (Sappho, etc.) and Alexandrian elegists (Callimachus, etc.). Most Greek of all Romans in his simplicity and spontaneity. His works lost during Middle Ages, and always less read than Horace. These combined are the type for all such English odes and short pieces as are addressed to “Lesbia,” “Delia,” “Celia,” etc. (Ben Jonson). Horace in particular was imitated by the seventeenth-century “cavalier” poets (Suckling, Herrick, etc.), and (unconsciously) guides later writers of pièces de circonstance.
Quintus HORATIUS Flaccus HORACE lived 65-8 B.C. ODES AND EPODES (love, politics, vers de société, moralizings). Avowed imitation of Sappho, Alcaeus, Pindar, Anacreon. Adapts Greek lyrical metres. Deft but unimpassioned. The model for lyrists and writers of social verse in France and Italy.
Elegiac Verse Albius Tibullus Tibullus fl. 20 B.C. Elegies (of affection and sentiment). Direct imitations of Alexandrian Greek elegists. Exerted an influence similar to that of Ovid, but in a less degree.
Sextus Aurelius Propertius Propertius
Publius OVIDIUS Naso OVID fl. 43 B.C.-A.D. 17. Various Poems, e.g., Heroides (in the form of letters). Tristia, Amores, etc. The Greek models are less epigrammatic. Ovid affects pointed couplets (compare Pope). Ovid was a favourite author even in the early Middle Ages. His love-elegies were particularly affected (as in the Romance of the Rose), and are best represented (in a shorter form) by the sonnet of the Italians and of the sixteenth-century English. The Italian painters and poets of the Renaissance made great use of him, and Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Pope are much indebted to him. The favourite work, however, was his Metamorphoses, which is not in elegiac, but in heroic verse, being narrative.
Satiric Verse Gaius Lucilius Lucilius fl. 120 B.C. Satires on politics, literature (fragments), etc. A native Latin growth (Greek satire takes a different form and medium). Models for much Italian satire (Aretino, etc.), and French (Regnier, Satyre Ménippée, Boileau, etc.). In English the best examples out of many are the Moral Essays and Imitations of Horace by Pope, his Dunciad, and the satires of Dryden (MacFlecknoe, etc.). Compare Byron’s English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Johnson copies Juvenal in London and Vanity of Human Wishes.
Quintus HORATIUS Flaccus HORACE 65-8 B.C. SATIRES AND EPISTLES (genial).
Aulus Persius Flaccus Persius fl. A.D. 60 Satires (crabbed style)
Decimus Junius JUVENALIS JUVENAL fl. A.D. 120 SATIRES (polished, terse, trenchant).
Didactic (and “philosophical”) Verse Titus LUCRETIUS Carus LUCRETIUS fl. 60 B.C. DE RERUM NATURA (“the Constitution of Nature”). In form follows old Greek philosophical poets, and in matter expounds the philosophy of Epicurus. Seen directly in the philosophical verse-essay (Pope’s Essay on Man, Akenside’s Pleasures of the Imagination, etc.): but Lucretius has also been the favourite reading of many poets, e.g., Shelley. Compare Tennyson’s Poem on “Lucretius,” Wordsworth’s Excursion.
Publius VERGILIUS Maro VIRGIL lived 70-19 B.C. GEORGICS (poems on husbandry). The idea taken from Hesiod. [See Hesiod in the Greek Table.]
Quintus HORATIUS Flaccus HORACE lived 65-8 B.C. ARS POETICA (an essay in literary criticism). An ill-digested rechauffé of Aristotle and later Greek critics. The source of the shallow criticism of Boileau and his school. And of Pope and his school.
Pastoral Verse VIRGIL BUCOLICS (or ECLOGUES). From Theocritus, but moralized and sometimes artificial. Imitated by Mantuan and Sannazaro in Italy, and Marot in France. Spenser’s Shepheard’s Calender etc. [See Greek Table: Pastoral.]
Epigram Marcus Valerius MARTIALIS MARTIAL fl. A.D. 90. EPIGRAMS (various subjects). The conception of Greek epigram is polish and delicacy. Of Latin it is chiefly point and sting. The modern conception of epigram is entirely taken from the Latin form. Martial is the one model.
History Gaius Julius CAESAR CAESAR lived 100-44 B.C. COMMENTARIES (on the Gallic and the Civil Wars; simple, straightforward narrative). It is impossible to estimate the great influence of these writers on later historians. Livy (with Cicero) is the model (in point of style) followed by Gibbon. [Compare remark in Greek Table: History.]
Gaius SALLUSTIUS Crispus Sallust fl. 45 B.C. Catilina and Jugurtha Attempts to imitate Thucydides. A commonplace moralizer.
Titus LIVIUS Patavinus LIVY Ob. A.D. 17 HISTORY (of Rome); (rich style, ample, pathetic). Adopts the Greek custom of putting verbatim speeches into the mouths of his characters.
Gaius Cornelius TACITUS TACITUS fl. A.D. 100 HISTORIES and ANNALS (of Emperors); (epigrammatic, terse, satirical). Aims at the condensation of Thucydides.
Oratory Marcus Tullius CICERO CICERO (and “Tully.”) lived 106-43 B.C. Speeches (59 extant, e.g., Philippics, Against Verres, etc.). Follower of Demosthenes, but in a more rotund and loaded style. The model of most French oratory and preaching (Bossuet, etc.) (Otherwise Seneca is followed). The model of speakers and preachers of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Jeremy Taylor, etc., to Burke, etc.). The “Johnsonian” style is based on Cicero.
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus Quintilian fl. A.D. 100 The Training of the Orator.
Letter-Writing CICERO 106-43 B.C. Letters (“To Atticus,” “To Friends”). A specially Roman department of literature. Type followed in France (Madame de Sévigné, etc.). The model for published letters like those of Horace Walpole and Pope.
Gaius PLINIUS Secundus Pliny (the Younger.) fl. A.D. 100 Letters (to friends, to Trajan, etc.).
Philosophy CICERO Academica, De Officiis, etc. A reproducer of Greek systems in popular expositions.
SENECA A brilliantly epigrammatic moralizer on old lines of thought. Seneca was favourite reading of moralizers of all European countries after the Renaissance.
Fable Phaedrus Phaedrus fl. A.D. 15 Fables Reproducer of Aesop See “Aesop” in Greek Conspectus.
Encyclopaedic Gaius Plinius Secundus Pliny (the Elder.) fl. A.D. 70 Natural History Storehouse of mediaeval science.