Latin Literature

I

Introduction

Latin Literature, literature of ancient Rome, and of much of western Europe through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, written in the Latin language.

II

The Latin Tradition

Latin literature first appeared in the 3rd century bc; its tradition has continued, in various forms, down to the present day. The disintegration of the Roman Empire and the gradual development of the Romance languages out of Vulgar Latin (the non-literary language of the general populace) did not for centuries affect Latin's position as the pre-eminent literary language of western Europe. Latin literature, in a Christianized form, continued to develop during the Middle Ages, when Latin served as the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. With the rise of Renaissance humanism in the 14th century and its emphasis on reviving the classical forms of the ancient world came a new burst of creativity in Latin, which lasted into the 17th century. Until recent times, in Western culture, knowledge of classical Latin (as well as Greek) literature was basic to a liberal education.

III

Characteristics of Latin Literature

The literature of Rome was itself modelled on Greek literature and served in turn as the basic model, especially in the Renaissance, for the development of later European literatures. Because of their close formal dependence on Greek models, Roman writers were concerned with emphasizing the specifically Roman quality of their experience; perhaps most important, almost all Roman writers had to come to terms with Rome's civilizing mission in the world. The greatest accomplishments of Roman literature are found in epic and lyric poetry, rhetoric, history, comic drama, and satire—the last genre being the only literary form the Romans invented.

IV

Early Period

Latin literature began with Livius Andronicus, who came to Rome as a Greek-speaking slave. He translated Homer's epic the Odyssey into Latin verse and wrote the first dramas in Latin as well as translations of Greek plays. The first native Roman writer was Gnaeus Naevius (c. 270-c. 201 bc), who followed the example of Livius Andronicus. His comedies were especially successful, and he also composed the Bellum Poenicum, an epic poem on the First Punic War fought between Rome and its rival, Carthage. The first really important Roman writer, however, was Quintus Ennius, famous for his Annales, a vigorous and energetic poem telling the story of Rome and its conquests in hexameter lines successfully adapted from Greek into Latin. Ennius's pioneering work served as the prototype for Roman epic and was affectionately imitated by later poets who refined his rugged style.

Only scattered fragments remain of the works of these earliest writers, but 21 plays of the first true genius in Roman literature, the comic writer Plautus, are extant. Comedy was Rome's most effective contribution to the development of drama; the lively and robust plays of Plautus served as a model for much subsequent European comedy and have been performed and imitated into modern times. Plautus's world of benighted masters, wily slaves, innocent maidens, and young men hopelessly and absurdly in love was taken over by the second Roman comic genius, Terence. Terence's plays are smoother and more graceful than those of his predecessor, less boisterously funny but perhaps more touching.

The statesman Cato the Elder, a political conservative and the implacable enemy of Carthage, was the earliest master of Roman prose. An effective orator, he provided the first models for Roman rhetoric. His treatise on farming, De Agri Cultura (c. 160 bc), still survives. The great master of satire, a genre apparently invented by Ennius, was Gaius Lucilius, who gave it its standard form in which a sharply defined voice pokes ruthless fun at a wide range of human foolishness, in both the public and private realm. Only fragments of Lucilius's work have survived.