The Roman Poets: Everyman's Library (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets) [Hardcover]

Peter Washington (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 11, 1997 | Series: Everyman's Library Pocket Poets

The urban and pastoral poetry of the Roman republic, and of the empire that succeeded it, was both the culmination of the magnificent classical tradition of the Mediterranean and the seedbed for almost all the subsequent poetic traditions of Western and Central Europe. The stateliness of Virgil's Eclogues and the grandeur of his epic line, the unsurpassable lyricism - by turns tender, incisive, and scabrous - of Catullus's elegies and satires, the philosophical splendor of Lucretius's meditations, the relentless imaginative energy of Ovid's narratives, and the sonorous beauty of the odes of Horace have been for two millennia a source of endless delight and instruction, and the work of these writers has given to Europe its frames of literary reference and its enduring canons of taste.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Virgil you can take or leave, but Horace and Martial are the cat's whiskers. Horace's odes are beautiful and thought-provoking, and Martial (despite that his name leads the uninitiated to expect battle imagery) was a very funny man. About as far from stuffy as it gets, these Roman poets wrote with passion and wit. Here's Martial on book reviewers (from Epigram I): "So they've summed you up, my little book. / You're now 'a milestone in ironic outlook.' / This the price of your publicity: / MARTIAL VIEWS LIFE VERY SAUCILY / Whatever they say is a load of balls / Certain to send you to second-hand stalls." The Roman Poets is another welcome addition to the Everyman's Library Pocket Poets series. These are beautiful books, sturdily made, and sensibly edited and arranged.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Latin

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Everyman's Library; First Edition edition (November 11, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375400710
• ISBN-13: 978-0375400711
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.6 x 6.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,561,145 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars "Peter Washington: The Barbarization of Latin Poetry", May 15, 2002

By 

Johannes Platonicus (South Bend, Indiana) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Roman Poets: Everyman's Library (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets) (Hardcover)

Peter Washington's fine selection of Roman poets is sadly watered down and barbarized by the translations he chose from English poets and playwrights, ranging from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, who had no regard for the genre in which the Latin poets originally wrote in. The epic meter, from which all the Latin poets modeled themselves off of, is discarded and the rhyming couplet is tragically substituted. Peter Washington's reason for this is that the epic meter is only fit for longer poems. Tell that to Horace, to Claudian, or to Virgil--tell that to any of the Roman poets and they would simply look at you with overwhelming disgust. All of them wrote in iambic and daclyctic hexameter, that is, Greek heroic verse, or in basic Greek lyrical form, as may be found in the works of Catullus or Horace. The rhyming couplet, then, was a fault all the ancient Greeks and Romans avoided both in poetry and good oratory; therefore it was completely alien to them. The great John Milton realizing this said that it was "the invention of a barbarous age, to set of lame meter and wretched matter," which inaugurated this tradition in English poetry, and therefore effected all their translations of the Roman poets' works. Sadly enough, this volume was not spared from "the troublesome and modern bondage of rhyming." However, this volume does have its bright spots. The editor's selection of Roman poets shows that he made a noble attempt to popularize some of the more obscure poets of antiquity, such as minor ones like Petronius Arbiter, Tibullus, Claudian, and Ausonius. Also, what better way is there to make Roman poetry known than by placing it into the context of modern English poetry, in a small, pocket sized volume, under the label of one of the most prominent publishers to be found, Everyman's library. Furthermore, the rhyming couplet at times--and the editor's minimal selection of lyrical verse--can be pleasant and bring forth deeper meaning out of the poetry. And at last, the detailed and vibrant illustrations, relevant to the poet and theme of their poetry, make flipping through these pages and reading aimlessly an engaging effort, worthy of leisure. In this anthology the Roman poets are Lucretius, Catullus, Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid, Seneca, Petronius Arbiter, Martial, Juvenal, Claudian, and Ausonius. This volume may come as a disappointment to those seeking to find these poets' works translated to the fullest degree in their original genre, but it still remains a good anthology, noble in scope, and charming in its simplicity.