Latin Love Elegy Before Ovid

Graduate / Professional

This course explores the genre of subjective elegy, aka love elegy, as written in Rome before the poet Ovid came along and effectively killed it. We consider generic constraints and pushback against them; the relationship between poetry and the real; the construction of character through myth and fantasy; poetic entanglement and rivalry; and the interaction of poetry with politics. Some attention is paid to modern parallels (especially in pop songs and romantic comedies), which is developed with student input. MW 1:05pm-2:20pm