Roman literature arose under Greek influence as early as the 3rd century BC. And glorified her greatest orator, writer and philosopher Cicero. It is worth noting that he was not only an outstanding orator and writer, but also a prominent statesman. Great success was achieved by Roman poetry in the 1st century BC. Cicero's contemporaries at that time were such great Roman poets as Lucretius and Catullus.
Lucretius was the author of the philosophical poem "On the Nature of Things", which fully revealed the concept of the theory of evolution. The full name of the poet is Titus Lucretius Kar. He was born in 98, but the details of his life are not known. Returning to the poem, I would like to note that it is not only a philosophical treatise, “seasoned” with poetry, but also a genuine work of art, opening a new page in ancient literature with its clear and specific vision of the world.
1. Appeal to the goddess Venus “Kind of Aeneev's mother, people and immortal delight, O good Venus! Under a sky of gliding constellations You fill with life both the fateful sea, And the fertile lands; through you, all living creatures begin to live and, having been born, they see the sun.” 2. The universe is a boundless space through which atoms rush. ... Listen to what I say, and you yourself will undoubtedly admit That there are bodies that we cannot see ...
3. When we are, there is no death, and vice versa. …And therefore the substance, consisting of a dense body, Can be eternal, although everything else decays. Further, if there were no emptiness anywhere, Everything would be Solid; and vice versa, if there were no known bodies to fill the places they occupy, Everything would then turn out to be both empty and empty space, Hence, everywhere emptiness, obviously, is replaced by a body, For there is neither completeness anywhere in the universe, nor emptiness , and there are bodies known only, That empty space is capable of delimiting with fullness. 4. Feelings - material reflections of real objects. ...Further, we smell various kinds of smells, Although we do not see at all how they penetrate into the nostrils. Also, we will never notice the scorching heat or cold with our Vision, and it is impossible to see the sound. But all this, however, has a bodily nature, If it is capable of setting our feelings in motion: After all, the body can only touch, as well as be tangible.
5. About the origin of the world. 6. Explains the phenomena of nature Man spent his life wandering like wild animals. With a firm hand, no one worked with a curved plow, And then they did not know how to cultivate the field with iron, Neither to plant young sprouts, nor to cut withered old branches from tall trees with a sharp sickle. First of all, the azure skies are shaken by thunder Due to the fact that, flying high in the spaces of the ether, the Clouds collide there under the onslaught of opposite winds. After all, no sound is heard from a part of the cloudless sky, In the same place where the clouds, gathered in a crowd, will rally, from there the peals of thunder strikes are most often heard ...
Gaius Valerius Catullus was born in 57 and died in about 54. The poet was born in Verona. Nothing is known about the life of the poet, but something can be learned from his works. For example, he was the lover of a married woman named Lesbia, at least that's what he called her in his lyrical works. Let us, Lesbia, live while we are alive, And love as long as the soul loves; Old gossips grumbling grumpy Let it not cost us a penny. The literary heritage of Catullus consists of three parts: 1) Large works in the "learned" style; 2) Small poems, “jokes; 3) Poems composed in elegiac distich (epigrams, elegies).
Poems: lyrical power; simplicity, commonness; used swear words; Sincerity; compared his love for Lesbia with his love for children; turned to the gods with a request to cure him of love, analyzed his condition in epigrams. Poems: knew the literature of the Greeks well Was a follower of Callimachus, an opponent of classical art
Albius Tibull (1st century BC) - was considered one of the most famous poets of the heyday of Roman literature. You can learn about the life of the poet from his works of art. Based on the description of village life in his works of art, it can be concluded that he was born in the countryside. The poet's family lived in abundance, but received nothing when distributing land to veterans. (41 BC)
Most of Tibull's works were on the theme of love. The content of these works is easier to understand because it is built on the feelings, emotions and desires of the poet. Some of them are dedicated to a girl named Nemesis, whom Albius loved until his death. The poet passed away very young, but his works of art have survived to this day and are published under the name Elegies.
Virgil Maron Publius (70-19 BC) Virgil Maron Publius was one of the most significant poets of ancient Rome, since it was he who discovered a new kind of epic poem. The poet was born into a poor family. From the age of 16, he began to create small poems, the most authentic of which is Culet.
Gaius Lucilius (born c. 180 BC) Gaius Lucilius was a Roman poet and the son of a major slave owner. Born in the Campagne region, near Naples. Love for poetry appeared from an early age. In his works, Lucilius touched on the topic of religion, politics and philosophy. The poet died in 102 BC. e.
Horace (65-8 BC) Horace Quintus Flaccus in 42 was an admirer of Brutus, an ardent republican. This prompted him to enter the battle at the great Philippine battle. After a lost battle, he returns to Italy. Having lost all his fortune and completely ruined, Horace decides to become a writer. His work begins with Satyrs and Epodes. The first book is dedicated to Horace's favorite philosophical conversations. The second book contains entertaining letters in the literary genre. Horace also wrote lyrical works, which he also called odes. In some, the poet talks about his love affairs, and in some he praises Augustus and his exploits.
Petronius the Arbiter (born around 14-died 66) Petronius the Arbiter was an ancient Roman writer and also the author of the novel Satyricon. His name "sounds" in all parts of the novel. Many figures spoke about him and wrote sayings. All these reviews confirmed the existence of the writer, but did not give details of his life.
Literature and poetry of ancient Rome
The whole world was in the hands of the winners -
Romans. They owned both the seas and the land, and
sky dotted with stars, but they only
it wasn't enough! Them heavily loaded
ships plied the seas. If they
met a secluded bay and an unknown
formerly an area where it was rumored to have been
gold mines, locals
were declared enemies of Rome, and fate
prepared a devastating war for them,
so that the Romans could take possession of new
treasures.
Gaius Petronius
This was written by a Roman, a friend of Nero, one of the most cruel and insignificant personalities on the Roman imperial throne (54-68 AD), a court writer, the author of the famous novel "Satyricon", a rich and noble man, indifferent enough not to resent it, do not be conceited.
The history of ancient Rome is rich in grandiose events, sometimes rising to the level of a world-historical tragedy. It cannot be assessed unequivocally: it is both great, monumental, grandiose, and terrible with some features of its historical existence. He gave unparalleled examples of the strength of human genius and at the same time - cruelty, weakness, deceit.
From year to year, from decade to decade, from century to century, Rome expanded its territory by conquering foreign lands, conquering tribes and peoples, until it turned from a small city-polis into a huge world power from the western shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the Caucasus.
All of its written and unwritten history, recognized and approved by the state, all legends, religion had to reinforce with examples from the past the idea of the military power of the Romans, allegedly predetermined, eternal, unshakable from the very beginning.
Aeneas, a native of Ilion, sung by Homer, the son of the Trojan Anchises and the goddess Venus (Aphrodite), was officially recognized as the ancestor of the state. The legend of the divine origin of Aeneas was intended to affirm in the minds of the people the idea of the divine pre-establishment of the Roman state itself.
From the god Mars and Sylvia, who descends from Aeneas, the brothers Romulus and Remus are born.
At the cradle of the Roman state, therefore, there was a god himself, and not just a god, but a god of war.
The insidious and vicious Amulius, who killed his brother, the father of Sivilla, took possession of her throne, having learned about the birth of twins who could threaten him in the future, orders them to be thrown into the Tiber. The river itself comes to the rescue - its waves gently pick up the children and carry them to the shore, where they are found and raised by ... a she-wolf.
The Beast, a fearless bloodthirsty predator, feeds the founders of Rome with its milk. The symbol of Rome, its State Emblem was the image of a she-wolf with two babies.
Wolf milk! The ideological sting of the legend is directed straight to the heart of the Roman warrior - brave, strong and cruel.
The brothers grew up, punished Amulius and founded the city of Rome. According to legend, this happened in 753 BC. and until 509 it was ruled by kings.
Once in a quarrel, Romulus killed Remus and became the first king of the city-polis (state). The city was named after him (in Latin, Roma). The last king was Tarquinius the Proud. He was expelled from the city for insulting the moral and religious feelings of the people. This action was led by Junius Brutus Sr., who left his name to the centuries as one of the first fighters against tyranny. The Romans abandoned monarchical rule and established a republic. It existed for about 500 years, until 31 BC.
THE FIRST DRAMA WORKS
Defeated Greece won
harsh winner and introduced art
into rough lazium.
Horace
These lines of the Roman poet became winged. The Romans admired the culture of Greece, and this delight knew no bounds. When the poet Lucretius decided to set forth in verse the philosophy of Epicurus, he first of all expressed his boundless admiration for the Greek thinker. He called him the glory and honor of Greece, his father, mentor, addressing him with truly filial love. The Romans were not at all ashamed to admit their dependence on the culture of Greece, and this despite their arrogance and arrogant pride in the title of Roman. However, there were also opponents of foreign influences in ancient Rome. The stern conservative Cato (234-149 BC) sharply condemned his compatriots for worshiping Greek culture, but he himself took up the study of the Greek language in his old age and could not but speak of the Greek historians Thucydides and Xenophon without approval.
Even the Romans began to "poach" the gods from the Greek pantheon.
Lucian has a mocking scene on this occasion, "The Assembly of the Gods." On Olympus, the Greek gods decided to purge. To do this, they elected a commission to select the true gods, separating them from the aliens, "due to the fact that many foreigners, not only Hellenes, but also barbarians, who are by no means worthy of sharing citizenship rights with us, got into our lists in some unknown way, took the form of gods and so filled the sky that our feast now looked like a gathering of a disorderly crowd, multilingual and rabble ... "
The twelve gods of Olympus migrated to the Roman pantheon and occupied all the respectable places in it, albeit under other names, except for Apollo, who retained his Greek name.
Of their own, they left Janus, the two-faced god of doors (gatekeeper), the guardians of the house of the Penates family (they lived in the house, and outside the house - Lara). They also preserved the ancestral cult represented by the gods of Mana. The goddess Vesta also guarded and protected the hearth of the Romans and was greatly revered by them. The legendary Greek prophetess Sibyl Cuma was also revered. Sibylline books containing Greek oracles were kept in temples, they were read by special interpreters.
The acquaintance of ordinary Romans with Greek literature began in 240 BC.
BC, when the "Latin Odyssey" appeared, a free translation of the poem by Homer, made by the captive Greek Livius Andronicus. For 2 centuries, the book was a kind of textbook in the schoolwork of young Romans.
The Romans adopted theatrical performances from the Greeks, although they made some changes to their devices, they also had some of their own traditions borrowed from the Etruscans.
In 55 BC Pompey built the first stone theater with 40,000 seats. The curtain appeared for the first time, the stage moved deeper, and the orchestra began to serve as a stall for the most eminent guests. Actors were recruited from slaves, freedmen (men and women). The profession of an actor among the Romans, unlike the Greeks, was considered shameful.
ANCIENT LITERATURE OF ROME
TITUS MACTIUS PLAUTO (c.254-184 BC)
Very little is known about the life of the greatest Roman comedian. He was born in Sarsina, in Umbria, and died in Rome. There is scarce and not very reliable information about his trade, work at the mill and theatrical activities. By a happy coincidence, out of 21 single comedies by Plautus, 20 comedies have been preserved in full and one in excerpts. Particularly well-known are The Boastful Warrior, Menechmas, The Potted Comedy, Pseudolus, The Ghost, The Vykhids, The Captives, Amphitrion.
A young man redeemed his girlfriend,
Having spent everything in the absence of a father, good.
And then the old man returned. Tranion managed
Circle it around your finger: they say, left
From home son, frightened by a ghost.
Yes, here came the usurer, demanded
With those money, they say, the neighbor's son bought a house.
The slave was exposed. But their drinking companion
He and the young man begged for forgiveness.
PUBLIS TERENTIUS AFR (ca. 195-159 BC)
Publius Terentius Aphrus was born in Carthage, was a slave of a Roman senator who set him free. During his short life, the poet wrote 6 comedies, all of which have survived to this day.
Terence's comedies differ in many ways from those of his predecessor. They are much more serious, more accurately convey the problems of Greek comedy, its soft, humanistic sound; they do not have Plavtov's mischief, dynamics of action, unrestrained buffoonery.
Lucretius
Kind of Eneeva mother, people and immortals
delight. Oh good Venus! Under the sky
moving constellations life you
you fill the whole shipping sea, and
fertile lands; by you all that exist
creatures begin to live and light,
born, sunny see.
Lucretius
"On the nature of things"
Good Venus! The goddess of love. The most beautiful of all the beautiful Greek goddesses of Olympus. The Greeks called her Aphrodite. The Romans renamed it Venus, identifying their goddess of gardens with the Greek goddess of love. Helpful fantasy gave rise to the legend of the son of Venus Aeneas, the founder of the Roman state. Venus became the national shrine of Rome. The military leaders called her Felix ("bringing happiness"). Julius Caesar considered her his progenitor, allegedly his family came from Aeneas. Temples were erected to her, sculptors depicted her in marble.
Lucretius put it more like a philosopher, for his poem, with all the aesthetic richness of its colors, is a philosophical poem par excellence.
"O good Venus!" In this exclamation, Lucretius's entire enthusiasm for life poured out. Venus for him is the personification of life itself, for everything begins with beautiful love.
Venus in the poem of Lucretius is a poetic image. He did not believe in any gods and set his task to rid people of this faith. True, he did not completely reject the existence of the gods and, following Epicurus, removed them to live somewhere in the "intermundium" (between the worlds), where they, without thinking about people at all and without interfering in their affairs, bliss in eternal serene joys, not knowing neither troubles nor formidable perturbations of nature.
Maybe it was a concession to his contemporaries, so as not to scare them away with his godlessness?
From the first pages of his poem "On the Nature of Things" we find ourselves in an atmosphere of complete irreligion. Moreover, sometimes we see in the poet not just a skeptic, but an ardent, militant atheist. It turns out, as he explains to the reader, people's lives "for a long time ugly dragged under the heavy burden of religion." Belief in the gods brought people the greatest harm, instilling in them the fear of a certain creature, which from the sky looked at them with a "terrible face." and pitiful mortals lowered their eyes, timid and trembling. But one Greek (Epicurus) dared not to lower his eyes, and no matter how frightened the rumor about the gods, he bravely turned to nature, in her alone seeking an explanation for the mysteries of the world.
Lucretius expounded in his poem the philosophy of materialism, or rather that highest stage of it, to which the ancient world rose. He stated that the universe is infinite / "The universe has no bottom anywhere", "there is no end or limit to space" / that the state of matter is perpetual motion / "The world is updated forever.
All this has entered as an undoubted truth into the modern doctrine of materialism.
Lucretius touched upon the problem of cognition and came to the conclusion that the first mediators between us and the outside world are the sense organs with which our body is equipped / "To touch, as well as to be tangible, the body can only" /. Further, Lucretius reflects on the questions of the existence of man and society. All people and the individual must live for the joys of the earth. Happiness is the purpose of their existence. This is required by life itself, by nature itself.
The poet turns his gaze to social life, he is interested in the problem of progress. What drives them? What makes people constantly improve their way of life? It turns out - needs, need:
Shipbuilding, field processing, roads and walls,
Dress, guns, rights, and all the rest
Life of convenience and everything that can bring delight:
Painting, songs, poems, skillful sculpture of statues -
Need indicated all this to people, and the mind is inquisitive
This they were taught in moving forward gradually.
Lucretius did not live long, he probably died at the age of 44, according to the very scarce and rather dubious information that has come down to us about this remarkable person (99 - 55 BC). The only review of the poem, which belonged to a contemporary of the author, has survived. In 53 B.C. Cicero wrote in a letter to his brother: "... it contains many glimpses of natural talent, as well as art."
POETRY
Lyrics! For the harsh Romans with their civic feelings, devotion to the interests of the state, courageous warriors who were not accustomed to any personal outpourings, this was a curiosity. Cicero called the lyricists "new poets".
Their very appearance testified to the decline of republican traditions. In their emphasized aspiration to the intimate world of man, in essence, their political position was expressed. They laughed at the importance and seriousness of epic narratives, mocked literary conservatives, defiantly engaging in poetic trifles, clearly giving preference to the formal side of the verse. It must be said that in this area they succeeded quite well and introduced a number of innovations into Roman versification:
Friend Licinius! Yesterday, during leisure hours,
We had fun with signs for a long time.
Excellent and fun playing
We wrote poems in turn,
Selected sizes and changed.
Catullus tells about his literary amusements. Poetry is like a game, like light entertainment. And they did it, young, "new poets."
GAI VALERIUS CATULLUS
Lyric poet Catullus was born in northern Italy, in the city of Verona. By the end of the 60s BC. the poet moves to Rome, where he meets many representatives of the nobility and leads a hectic lifestyle of "literary bohemia".
Guy Valerius Catullus belongs to the number of Roman lyric poets, who received the name of "neoterics" - new poets, from the light hand of Cicero, and was the most talented of them. Poems of Catullus have amazing lyrical power, deep sincerity and expressive simplicity. A significant part of his lyrics was born under the influence of great love for Claudia (the sister of a famous political figure of that era). These verses put Catullus among the greatest lyricists of world poetry.
Cute baby bird, love of my girlfriend!
Taking it on your knees, playing with you
And she pampers and cute finger
Substitutes for violent bites.
When so my charm, life, joy
Having fun, God knows how he laughs,
To find comfort in worries,
So that passion (I know - passion!) Is not so blazing,
Here I would like to play with you,
So that sadness eases and the heart subsides.
(translated by Piotrovsky)
PUBLIS VERGILIUS MARON (70 - 19 BC)
Virgil, an outstanding poet of ancient Rome, was born in the Andes. He studied rhetoric and philosophy, studied with the famous philosopher of the Epicurean school Siron.
His literary activity begins in 40 BC. At this time, he imitates the neotheric, in particular, Catullus. At the end of the 40s, Virgil published a collection of 10 eclogues - "Bucoliki", based on the tradition of bucolic (shepherd's) poetry, which was formed in the literature of Hellenism.
During the 30s, he creates a large didactic poem dedicated to rural labor - "Georgics". He glorifies in it the rural labor, the village as a pillar of the state, seeks to arouse interest in rural labor, which met the urgent needs of the policy of Augustus, who sought to revive agriculture, devastated by the civil war. In the "Georgics" Virgil appears as a convinced and active spokesman for the ideas of the principate.
Immediately after the end of the Georgics, Virgil set to work on the Aeneid, a heroic poem that became the main work of his life.
QUINT HORATIO FLACK (65 - 8 BC)
Quintus Horace Flaccus was born in a small town in the south of Italy to a freedman's family. His father took him to Rome, where Horace studied with the sons of noble Romans. At the age of twenty, he went to Athens, where he continued his education.
The works of Horatio have come down to us in full. His first poems relating to the 30s of the 1st century BC were collected in two books "Satire" and called by the poet himself "Conversations". They are devoted to various topics of philosophical and ethical, literary and critical, everyday and autobiographical nature.
The central place in the work of Horace is occupied by four books "Od" (or "Songs"). They most fully revealed the ideological orientation of Horace's poetry - the approval of the political and religious and ethical ideas of the principate, the glorification of Augustus, the moral and philosophical views of the poet. The love-lyrical theme is also richly and diversely presented in them. In the "Odes" the artistic skill of the poet reached perfection - the vivid imagery and freshness of the language, the filigree finishing of the verse, the variety of rhythm, the brilliant, virtuoso composition of the verse.
Ovid (43 BC - 18 AD)
Ovid was born in the city of Sulmon in an old equestrian family. His father sent him to Rome, where the future poet received an excellent rhetorical education, which left an imprint on all his work. The state career did not captivate Ovid. He soon quits his career and devotes himself entirely to poetry.
The first works of Ovid were collections of love elegies ("Amores") and poetic messages of mythical heroines to their lovers and husbands ("Heroides"). Ovid continues the genre of love elegies, developed and represented by Tibull and Propertius. Remaining within the genre, Ovid introduces a new, hitherto unknown tonality into the elegy - irony, gives it a rhetorical coloring and brilliance of wit. The elegy of Ovid is not characterized by depth and sincerity of feelings, anxiety and dissatisfaction with reality, which are so characteristic of older elegiacs.
PHADR (endIc.b.c. - c.70 AD)
The fable genre, folk in content and form, in Roman literature finds its expression in the work of Phaedrus, a former Greek slave from Macedonia, set free by Augustus. Phaedrus died at a ripe old age. From his writings we learn that he lived in poverty and was persecuted for his fables, in particular by Sejanus, Nero's temporary worker. The fables of the legendary Greek fabulist Aesop and the Roman reality surrounding the poet served as material for Phaedrus. The fables of Phaedrus expressed the protest of the democratic circles of Roman society against the violence and oppression of the nobility and the rich, condemned the vices and injustice of those in power.
The literature of the early Greeks, like other peoples, went back to the traditions of ancient folklore, which included fairy tales, fables, myths and songs. With the change in social conditions, the rapid development of folk epic poetry began, glorifying the deeds of the ancestors and heroes of each tribe. The epic poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey" testify to the level of poetic creativity of the early Greeks. In the XVII-XII centuries. a prominent place was occupied by legends about the most important contemporary historical events.
The Homeric period was non-literate. In general, the Homeric period was a time of decline, stagnation of culture, but it was then that the prerequisites for the rapid rise of Greek society in the archaic and classical era ripened.
Lyric poetry is becoming widespread and soon becomes the leading literary trend of the era. The most important distinguishing feature of the Greek poetry of the archaic period in all its main types and genres should be recognized as its pronounced humanistic coloring. The close attention of the poet to a specific human personality, to its inner world, individual mental characteristics is quite clearly felt already in Homer's poems.
In the classical era, Greek literature flourished. The last and most prominent singer of the Greek aristocracy, Pindar, composed solemn odes in honor of the winners at all-Hellenic sports competitions - Olympian, Pythian (in Delphi), etc. Pindar does not describe the competitions themselves, victory interests him as an opportunity to glorify valor in the person of the winner.
Since the beginning of the VI century, the beginning of the decline of literature has already been observed. During this period, oratory, philosophy, historical writings took a leading place in literature, clearly crowding out other genres - drama and lyrics. Although theaters continued to flourish, even new ones were built, and the audience willingly visited them, tastes have changed significantly. The moral foundations of life, acute political and social conflicts, the problems of good and evil in the private and public spheres attracted less and less attention. The interests of people have narrowed significantly, focused on private life.
The ancient Greek theater developed in the VI-V centuries. BC. An important role in the development of the theater was played by the cult of Dionysus, the god of viticulture, winemaking, fun, and later the patron of theatrical art. During the processions in honor of Dionysus - Dionysius, scenes from the life of God were played out. In the spring of 534 BC. in Athens, at the feast of the great Dionysius, the first performance of the tragedy took place. The author was the first tragic poet Thespides.
5th century BC e. - the heyday of dramatic art, marked by the work of three great tragic poets: Aeschylus (525 - 456), Sophocles (c. 496 - 406), Euripides (c. 480 - 406). The most important dramatic genres were tragedy, the plots of which were myths about gods and heroes, and comedy, most often political.
In the beginning, theaters were portable. Only under Pericles did the first stone theater appear, which served as a prototype for further buildings of this kind. For the amphitheater, they usually chose a terraced area. Having trimmed and cut out ledges for the seat, at the bottom, in the center of the circle, they arranged places for the choir, and behind it they set up a stage. The seats were usually faced with marble, and the upper tier was crowned with a colonnade. Seats were numbered to avoid crowding and confusion. In Greece, the theater is the school of citizenship education. In Greece, everyone was required to attend the theatre. The rich paid for the poor. In Greece, an actor is a respected person.
A feature of all ancient dramas was the choir, which accompanied the whole action with singing and dancing. Aeschylus introduced two actors instead of one, reducing the choir parts and focusing on dialogue, took a decisive step in turning the tragedy from mimic choral lyrics into a genuine drama. The game of two actors made it possible to increase the tension of the action. The appearance of the third actor is an innovation of Sophocles, which made it possible to outline different lines of conduct in the same conflict. Women's roles were played by men.
The first literary works, like many things in Rome, were connected with the practical activities of people: these are oral poetry, songs of priests who accompanied various ceremonies, workers, songs of shepherds, rowers. There were lullabies, funeral, wedding or drinking songs, in which they could sing the "glory of the ancestors." The formation and development of Roman literature was greatly influenced not only by folk art, folk poetry, the spread of writing, but especially by Greek literature. For a long time, poetry was nameless. The first author with a name is considered to be the statesman Appius Claudius the Blind, under whom the first significant road and water supply were built, but most often the first Roman poet is called Livy Andronicus, a slave from Greece, a freedman who translated Homer's Odyssey into Latin and translated it like this called the Saturnian verse, i.e. poetic size, inherent in ancient verses associated with the cult of the god Saturn.
Another name for Roman poetry is Horace. His pen belongs to the famous poem "Monument", a free translation of which was made by A.S. Pushkin.
In general, Roman culture is inconceivable without the names of such poets as Virgil (the poem "Enenda"), Plautus (comedies), Ovid (the poem "Metamorphoses").
Roman comedy is better represented. For many centuries, the comedies of Titus Maccius Plautus (circa 254--184) were considered exemplary; in terms of plot, layout and character, the comedies of Plautus are imitative. They were created under the influence of neo-Attic comedy, which, unlike the political comedy of the classical era, was a comedy of everyday life.
Drama and poetry were the main, but not the only, types of Latin literature. At the same time, prose also developed. For a long time, until the II century. BC e., writings in prose were few and consisted mainly of brief records of historical events and legal norms. Like early poetry, early Roman prose was imitative. The first literary works were written in Greek, although Roman history was also expounded on them.
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The development of the lyric poetry of Ancient Rome is closely connected with social processes, namely with the fall of the Roman Republic and the establishment of the empire. In the middle of the 1st c. BC. a new school of literature emerged neotherics. The literary model for her was the poetry of the heyday of Greek classical lyrics and Alexandrian poetry. The decisive factor in the artistic worldview of the neotherics was the rejection of the surrounding world, official society and interest in a person in the world of his personal feelings and sensations. What was new in their poetry was that personal experiences rose to the heights of civil life. The poetry of personal feelings introduced a new hero into Roman literature, demanded the development of small genre forms and the improvement of poetic meter. The works of neotheric poets have come down to us only in scattered fragments or references. The only exception is a collection of poems Gaius Valeria Catullus. It contains 116 poems. Small poems, reminiscent of the lyrical works of modern times, are a genre that was first developed in Rome in the work of Catullus. Poems of Catullus are devoted to various topics. Here are appeals to friends, and mocking poems, and love lyrics. His works always have addressees and are associated with specific events in the poet's personal life. The special value of the human personality is affirmed, and the hero of Catullus' poetry appears both as a man and a citizen at the same time in equal measure. At the same time, the affirmation of a new ideal goes through the negation of the previously existing one. Love in Catullus is presented in the same perspective, and for his heroes it means the merging of civic aspirations with the dictates of the heart, life for another person and in another. The love of Catullus combines sensual joys and spiritual communication, tenderness and duty. In the lyrics of Catullus, for the first time, love appears as a great, powerful feeling that elevates a person. In this respect, the poems of Catullus resemble the best examples of modern love lyrics.
Beauty, and above all female beauty, is a special theme in the works of Catullus. For the first time in Roman literature, the components of the ideal of beauty are "attractiveness", "refinement", "grace".
The only surviving drinking poem was translated by A. S. Pushkin. The poet left without translation one line of the poem, in which Postumia was compared to a drunken grape. This comparison seemed, apparently, to the poet difficult to translate.
Thus, in the work of Catullus, three of the greatest events for Roman literature take place: the appearance of a qualitatively new hero, combining a person and a citizen; knowledge and study of private life, everyday life, relationships; discovery of the complex world of human feelings in their contradiction and unity. With the poetry of Catullus, all meters of Greek lyrics entered Roman literature, and many of them were used for the first time.
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Octavian August in the pose of Jupiter |
The further development of poetry in Rome was associated with the assertion of the power of Octavian Augustus, the proclamation of the principate (the initial stage of the empire in the 1st century BC - 1st century AD) and the formation of literary circles. Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Tibull, Propertius and other poets shone in them.
Horace. The first works of the poet were epods - iambic poems written in couplets. These mocking poems, full of irony and sometimes deliberate rudeness, contrast sharply with the sensitivity of Virgil's bucolic works and with the Roman elegy. Horace, already in his first works, acts as the creator of the original lyrics, which marked the beginning of satire and ode. During the 1930s, Horace published two collections of satires. He himself called his satires conversations (sermones), as if emphasizing that the main thing in them is the presentation of thoughts in the form of a relaxed dialogue. The poet strives to write his satires in an elegant, unconstrained language, close to the oral conversation of an educated person. He focuses his attention on the problem of personal happiness, wishing to teach his readers the wisdom of life. Various moral issues are discussed in satires: the harm of ambition and ignorance, the stupidity of vanity, the futility of greed, the demand for condescension to the shortcomings of a friend is put forward, a modest and moderate way of life is glorified.
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I erected a monument, it is stronger than copper, Higher than the proud pillar of the royal pyramids. Rain sharpening granite and Aquilon whirlwind They won't destroy it. Innumerable series Years will fly over it and centuries will pass. Not! Not all of me will die. The best part of me Burial will be avoided. my glory bloom Will be forever as long as the Capitoline Temple The priest ascends, and with him the silent maiden. They will say I was born where Aufid 10 makes noise, Where once Dawn 11 in water-poor fields Ruled a rural country - a king from nothingness! I was the first to translate the Aeolian song In the Italian way. Be proud of me! Solemn laurel, O Melpomene, to me You crown the head with a well-deserved caress. |
At the age of 23, he published a collection of his lyrical poems, which are commonly called odes. Horace follows the ancient Greek poets - Alcaeus, Sappho, Anacreon. The Roman poet creates a kind of lyrical poetry in which thought prevails over feeling and artistic images are selected to illustrate certain provisions of the "Horatian wisdom", known to us from his satires, but enriched here with the motifs of ancient Greek lyrics. Horace considered it his merit that for the first time he conveyed in Latin verse many metric sizes, first developed by ancient Greek poets. He writes about this in the famous ode to Melpomene, which inspired G.R. Derzhavin and A.S. Pushkin.
The odes vary in subject matter. Among them are love and friendship poems, and hymns to the gods, and responses to political events. However, whatever the content of the poem, it always bears the stamp of a characteristic Horatian manner. Unlike the lyrics of Catullus, poor in images, but rich in emotional content, Horace's poetry shines with skillfully drawn pictures, honed thoughts, subtle irony and deep generalizations. At the same time, the author maintains the pose of an observer, fixing the moods of the characters and giving his conclusions. Images and motifs of ancient Greek lyrics: a feast, the vicissitudes of love, a call for pleasure in the face of impending death, and others - serve to create a stylized poetic world with somewhat conventional characters and feelings.
In 17 BC in Rome, the festival of "renewal of the century" was solemnly celebrated, which marked the end of civil wars and the beginning of a new, happy era. Horace was entrusted with compiling a festive hymn. In this official hymn, the poet glorifies Octavian Augustus and his reforms, glorifies the Roman state, sings the beginning of a new century. The anthem is written in the solemn style of a cult song. At this time, Horace becomes a recognized poet, and Octavian Augustus insists that he glorify his state activities in his poems.
In The Science of Poetry, Horace appears as a theorist of Roman classicism. The poet expresses his views in the form of a casual conversation, easily moving from one question to another, addressing his readers with practical advice, giving examples, sprinkling his speech with jokes and witticisms. Horace demands harmony and proportionality of parts from a poetic work, calls for choosing a subject that matches the capabilities of the poet.
The creative activity of Horace was of great importance for the history of Roman literature. However, his fame in ancient times could not be compared with the popularity of Virgil. In the Middle Ages, it was intensively read. However, interest in him as a lyric poet took on wide dimensions only in the Renaissance. His poetry played a big role in the formation of the lyrics of modern times. Separate provisions of a kind of Horatian philosophy (the so-called "Horatian wisdom") are often found in French lyrics of the 18th - early 19th centuries, they also penetrate into Russian poetry. Horatian motifs are used by Lomonosov, Derzhavin, Delvig and Pushkin.
At the same time, when the poetic activity of Virgil and Horace unfolds, a peculiar genre of love elegy arises and develops in Rome. Representatives of this genre were Gallus, Tibull, Propertius and Ovid. The central theme of their poetry is love. It is in the world of love experiences that they find the main content of life. The Roman elegiacs are critical of the principate. Propertius and Ovid ridicule the laws on marriage issued by Octavian Augustus, express contempt for state activity and military service. Tibull ignores political events, does not even mention the name of Octavian. In their elegies, these poets create a special world, opposed to the official world. They demand respect and attention to feelings, which until now have not played a central role in the work of Roman poets. At the same time, they use motifs and images of ancient love poetry, modifying them and, as it were, passing through the prism of the author's perception. In the center of the elegy is the personality of the author himself, who always describes his own experiences, the events of his life. The subjective character of the Roman elegy distinguishes it from the narrative love elegy on mythological themes cultivated by ancient Greek and Hellenistic poets.
From Tibulla several elegies have come down to us that touch with the sincerity of feelings, the tenderness of the soul. He knows how to vividly convey the shades of a love feeling, draw pictures of nature, show the life of a simple person. Tibull is fluent in the richness of the Latin language, writes easily and gracefully. His poetry was highly valued even in antiquity.
Propertius left four books of elegies. He is a singer of passionate love, who sees in it the purpose of life. In the poet's elegies, Love is mournful and difficult, his mistress Kintia is cruel and capricious. If Tibull's love is shown against the backdrop of an idyllic rural life, then Propertius paints a variety of pictures: porticos, squares and streets of Rome, the fashionable resort of Bailly, the seashore, etc. The poet shows great interest in mythology and even plans to subsequently create a cycle of narrative elegies on mythological themes. Mythological images are very common in his works. He constantly compares his beloved with the beautiful heroines of the distant past, his experiences and ups and downs of difficult love with the feelings of mythological heroes. Mythology is a kind of means of poeticization, to which he willingly resorts, revealing his "scholarship". In the work of Propertius, the genre of Roman elegy, as it were, outgrows the narrow framework of love lyrics, enriching itself with a number of new themes.
Ovid was a gifted orator, although he did not like speeches that required strict logic and legal reasoning. Ovid was attracted by speeches in which it was possible to give the psychological characteristics of the characters placed in some unusual position. Ovid's speech, according to Seneca, was reminiscent of prose poems (solutum carmen). A brilliant poetic talent and an attraction to literary creativity manifested itself very early in this outstanding poet.
Ovid's first literary work was a collection of love elegies. Based on the poetry of his predecessors, using the traditional motifs of Roman elegiac poets, Ovid creates a new type of elegy, far from the romantically elevated elegy of his predecessors. Ovid stands firmly on the ground of reality, treats his surroundings with a lively interest, and is endowed with sharp observation and wit. It seems to him worthy of a poetic depiction of those aspects of life that the former elegiac poets avoided. He boldly leads his readers to the Roman circus, where, during the performance, young men meet girls.
The poet teaches the jealous husband and gives advice to the lover on how best to deceive the husband of his beloved. Ovid pokes fun at the marriage laws of Octavian Augustus, laughs at the rich and stupid praetor, who is successful with his Corinna. The everyday feelings of a person and the pictures of the surrounding life become objects of image in Ovid's poetry. Joke, laughter, irony for the first time so widely penetrate with his elegies into Roman lyric poetry, defining the main tone of the young poet's love poems.
A representative of the younger generation of the principate period, which did not go through the fire of civil wars, Ovid readily accepts those blessings of peace and culture that characterize the initial period of the Roman Empire. He is alien to the painful struggle, the search for a position in life, which were characteristic of the poets of the previous generation. Ovid's attention is drawn to the inner world of man. However, he does not build a complex system of relationships between a person and the surrounding reality, as the poets of the previous period (Virgil and Horace) did. But in the traditional genre of the love elegy, Ovid's new approach to his characters did not fully materialize. Having lost the main thing - a deeply serious attitude to its topic, Ovid's elegy turned into a witty joke, an elegant lyrical miniature. Everyday reality, everyday life in this genre could, of course, find only an ironic, playful incarnation. From love elegies, the poet moves on to the genre of a lyrical message on mythological themes. "Heroines" (or "Messages of Heroines")- these are poetic letters of the heroines of the myth to the husbands and lovers who left them. Penelope, Briseis, Dejanira, Medea, Phaedra, Ariadne, Dido, and others address messages. Drawing images that are widely known to the Roman reader and have a centuries-old tradition in ancient fiction, Ovid illuminates the spiritual life of his characters in a new way. The messages are reminiscent of rhetorical svasoria, speeches put into the mouths of historical or mythological characters that were delivered in rhetorical schools. The heroines of Ovid master all the techniques of oratory, combining rhetorical figures with lyrical outpourings in their letters. The messages are monotonous in theme, since all the heroines are in the same position - in separation from their beloved. The same motives are found in the letters of different heroines (complaints about loneliness, jealous suspicions, memories of the past, a request to return, etc.). The art of the poet is manifested in the ability to vary similar motifs, in an effort to give each image unique features that distinguish it from others. At the same time, Ovid, as it were, reduces his characters from mythological pedestals, bringing them closer to the everyday appearance of contemporary Roman women. To do this, he introduces a number of strokes and well-aimed details into the messages, indicating the deep interest of the poet in the life around him.
The first period of Ovid's work ends with two playfully didactic poems: "The Art of Love" (Ars amatoria) and "Remedies for Love" (Remedia amoris), 1 BC - 1 AD The poem "The Art of Love" is one of the most brilliant works of the young Ovid in terms of wit and formal perfection. The poet parodies in it learned manuals, in particular manuals on rhetoric. He makes up a whole code of rules of conduct that a young man in love should be guided by in his relationship with his beloved woman. Ovid begins his playful poem with a section: "Finding the object of love", giving advice on how and where to find a suitable lover. The second part of the poem is devoted to how to win love, the third how to keep it. Numerous everyday sketches, elegant mythological stories, and playful discourses on moral themes are introduced into the work.
The poem aroused the dissatisfaction of the guardians of morality with the freedom of tone and the outright boldness of individual paintings. Then Ovid composed another work on the exact opposite theme - "Remedies for Love". In this small work, he advises to engage in agriculture or government activities, go on a long journey, etc., in order to be healed of a love feeling. The poem is also playful and full of wit.
In the heyday of his poetic talent, Ovid proceeds to create large works on mythological themes. He simultaneously writes two poems: "Metamorphoses" and "Fast". "Metamorphoses"- an epic poem that tells legends about the transformation of people into animals, as well as into inanimate objects: plants and stones, springs, luminaries, etc. These myths are widespread in the folklore of various peoples. The Roman poet used numerous sources: scientific and works of art, catalogs and monuments of fine art.The poem consists of 15 books.This is a fascinating, lively work with a mass of characters, with a constant change of scene.Ovid collected about 250 myths about transformations.Scattered myths with different heroes are combined here into a single whole "To give unity to the work, the poet uses various techniques: he combines myths in cycles (Theban, Argos, etc.), according to the similarity of characters, according to the place of action. He often comes up with links between heterogeneous legends. The connection of fantasy with reality is characteristic of the entire poem of Ovid. Its heroes, on the one hand, are fabulous mythological figures, on the other and are ordinary people. The story is not complicated by any thoughtful reasoning. This accessibility, lightness and poetry of the story provided Ovid's poem with wide popularity in ancient and modern times. The reader of modern times usually got acquainted with ancient mythology in the fascinating presentation of Ovid by this poem, widely known and loved already in the Middle Ages. Many stories have provided material for numerous literary works, operas, ballets and paintings.
Simultaneously with the Metamorphoses, Ovid writes another poem, " Fasty"(Calendar). The poem "Fasta", written in elegiac distich, tells about the origin of certain Roman rites, festivities and ceremonies. Here is a slightly different style of narration (although much space is also given to mythology), more everyday details, and the very tone of the narration is simpler, more lyrical and emotionally rich than in Metamorphoses.
Ovid dedicated his poem to Octavian Augustus and paid special attention in it to the festivities associated with the imperial house. Completely unexpected for him was Octavian's formidable order to expel him from Rome on the Black Sea coast to the city of Tomy (near present-day Constanta in Romania) in 8 AD. Ovid complains in his "Sorrowful Elegies" about the difficult living conditions in these places, about the lack of books, about his debilitating illnesses. In exile, he wrote 5 books "Sorrowful elegies", 4 books" Messages from Pontus". Only poetry brightens up the life of an exile.
Ovid was proud of the works he created and more than once emphasized in the "Sorrowful Elegies" that they would live for centuries and be read by all peoples. Indeed, he was one of the most popular poets of Rome in the Middle Ages and in modern times. "The Art of Love" inspired many poets of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. "Metamorphosis" has become an inexhaustible treasury of mythological legends for many generations. Ovid is deeply original, his creations shine with poetic fiction and at the same time are full of interest in life, which he was able to portray generously and colorfully. The works of this major artist of ancient Rome have not lost their significance even today.
At the beginning of our era, lyric poetry was not popular; practical morality dominated in the works, the propaganda of philosophical ideas, the desire to bring rhythmic prose closer to rhythmic poetry. Among poets, epigrams (Martial) and satires (Juvenal) are most popular. Martial known for epigrams, which he dedicated to depicting reality, ridiculing the vicious phenomena of everyday life. He followed Catullus in many ways, using his measurements. satires Juvenal initially had a sharply accusatory character, criticizing the licentiousness, depravity of the mores of the empire. The author focused on the degeneration of the once noble families, the moral decline of the family, the unlimited power of money, the debauchery of some and the miserable life of others. Later, Juvenal is no longer so critical, but evaluates life in a calmer tone, the tone of later satires is conciliatory.
Thus, the achievements of the poets of ancient Greece and Rome laid the foundation for the development of European lyrical creativity.
Poets and writers of ancient Greece and Rome
Aesop is an ancient Greek fabulist of the 6th century BC. e.
Aeschylus was an ancient Greek poet and playwright of the 5th century BC. e.
Leonid, Tarentsky - an ancient Greek poet of the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd centuries BC. e.
Lucian is an ancient Greek poet of the 2nd century BC. e.
Sophocles is an ancient Greek poet and playwright of the 5th century BC. e.
Euripides is an ancient Greek poet and playwright of the 5th century BC. e.
Menander is an ancient Greek poet of the 4th century BC. e.
Theocritus is an ancient Greek poet of the late 4th - early 3rd centuries BC. e.
Virgil, Maron Publius - Roman poet of the 1st century BC. e.
Callimachus is an ancient Greek poet of the late 4th - early 3rd centuries BC. e.
Lucretius - Roman poet and philosopher of the 1st century BC. e.
Apollonius, Rhodes - an ancient Greek poet of the late 4th - early 3rd centuries BC. e.
Aristophanes is an ancient Greek poet of the 5th century BC. e.
Asklepiades - an ancient Greek poet of the late II - early I centuries BC. e.
Hipponactus was an ancient Greek poet of the 6th century BC. e.
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