Anthologia Latina: Passages from the Latin Poets (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Anthologia Latina: Passages From the Latin Poets

The apparent duration of genuine Latin poetry, as represented by the interval of more than 700 years that separates Nevins from Boethius, must not mislead us. In reality its death-knell had sounded in the third century, when quantity, although the knowledge of it was retained by artificial training, had already begun to be super seded by accent. Still allowing, as we must, for the display of the highest poetic genius in Italy, a brief period as compared with that of its manifes tation in Greece; allowing, too, the want of crea tive power and originality which characterizes much of the poetry of the Romans, we must still claim for it that it is their most complete literary monu ment.' Apart from the national character which is indelibly stamped upon them, there is a tender ness and a brilliancy, a dignity and a strength in the masterpieces of the Roman poets, which en title them to rank among the lasting treasures be queathed to us by the past.

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