Neither older empiricist positions that genre is an abstract concept, useless for the study of individual works of literature, nor the recent (post) modern reluctance to subject literary production to any kind of classification seem to have stilled the discussion on the various aspects of genre in classical literature. Having moved from more or less essentialist and/or prescriptive positions towards a more dynamic conception of the generic model, research on genre is currently considering "pushing beyond the boundaries", "impurity", "instability", "enrichment" and "genre-bending". The aim of this volume is to raise questions of such generic mobility in Latin literature. The papers explore ways in which works assigned to a particular generic area play host to formal and substantive elements associated with different or even opposing genres; assess literary works which seem to challenge perceived generic norms; highlight, along the literary-historical, the ideological and political backgrounds to "dislocations" of the generic map.

The Cambridge Critical Guide to Latin Literature offers a critical overview of work on Latin literature. Where are we? How did we get here? Where to next? Fifteen commissioned chapters, along with an extensive introduction and Mary Beard's postscript, approach these questions from a range of angles. They aim not to codify the field, but to give snapshots of the discipline from different perspectives, and to offer provocations for future development. The Critical Guide aims to stimulate reflection on how we engage with Latin literature. Texts, tools and territories are the three areas of focus. The Guide situates the study of classical Latin literature within its global context from late antiquity to Neo-Latin, moving away from an exclusive focus on the pre-200 CE corpus. It recalibrates links with adjoining disciplines (history, philosophy, material culture, linguistics, political thought, Greek), and takes a fresh look at key tools (editing, reception, intertextuality, theory).

The aesthetic changes in late Roman literature speak to the foundations of modern Western culture. The dawn of a modern way of being in the world, one that most Europeans and Americans would recognize as closely ancestral to their own, is to be found not in the distant antiquity of Greece nor in the golden age of a Roman empire that spanned the Mediterranean, but more fundamentally in the original and problematic fusion of Greco-Roman culture with a new and unexpected foreign element-the arrival of Christianity as an exclusive state religion. For a host of reasons, traditionalist scholarship has failed to give a full and positive account of the formal, aesthetic and religious transformations of ancient poetics in Late Antiquity. The Poetics of Late Latin Literature attempts to capture the excitement and vibrancy of the living ancient tradition reinventing itself in a new context in the hands of a series of great Latin writers mainly from the fourth and fifth centuries AD. A series of the most distinguished expert voices in later Latin poetry as well as some of the most exciting new scholars have been specially commissioned to write new papers for this volume.

Although Greek and Latin poetry from late antiquity each poses similar questions and problems, a real dialogue between scholars on both sides is even now conspicuously absent. A lack of evidence impedes discussion of whether there was direct interaction between the two language traditions. This volume, however, starts from the premise that direct interaction should never be a prerequisite for a meaningful comparative and contextualising analysis of both late antique poetic traditions. A team of leading and emerging scholars sheds new light on literary developments that can be or have been regarded as typical of the period and on the poetic and aesthetic ideals that affected individual works, which are both classicizing and 'un-classical' in similar and diverging ways. This innovative exploration of the possibilities created by a bilingual focus should stimulate further explorations in future research.

Classicizing Christian poetry has largely been neglected by literary scholars, but has recently been receiving growing attention, especially the poetry written in Latin. One of the objectives of this volume is to redress the balance by allowing more space to discussions of Greek Christian poetry. The contributions collected here ask how Christian poets engage with (and are conscious of) the double reliance of their poetry on two separate systems: on the one hand, the classical poetic models and, on the other, the various genres and sub-genres of Christian prose. Keeping in mind the different settings of the Greek-speaking East and the Latin-speaking West, the contributions seek to understand the impact of historical setting on genre, the influence of the paideia shared by authors and audiences, and the continued relevance of traditional categories of literary genre. While our immediate focus is genre, most of the contributions also engage with the ideological ramifications of the transposition of Christian themes into classicizing literature. This volume offers important and original case studies on the reception and appropriation of the classical past and its literary forms by Christian poetry.

The resonant opening lines of Virgil's Aeneid rank among the most famous and consistently recited verses to have been passed down to later ages by antiquity. And after The Odyssey and the Iliad, Virgil's masterpiece is arguably the greatest classical text in the whole of Western literature. This sinuous and richly characterised epic vitally influenced th poetry of Dante, Petrarch and Milton. The doomed love of Dido and Aeneas inspired Purcell, while for T.S. Eliot Virgil's poem was 'the classic of all Europe'. The poet's stirring tale of a refugee Trojan prince, 'torn from Libyan waves' to found a new homeland in Italy, has provided much fertile material for writings on colonialism and for discourses of ethic and national identity. The Aeneid has even been viewed as a template and source of justification for British and European imperialisms and for American nation-building. In his major and much anticipated new book Philip Hardie explores the many remarkable afterlives- ancient, medieval and modern- of the Aeneid in literature, music, politics, the visual arts and film. The Last Trojan Hero, by one of Virgil's leading interpreters, put continually fresh and surprising perspectives on one of the outstanding works of civilization. Placing the Aeneid on a broad artistic and historical canvas, it shows with elegance, originality and creative insight how and in what ways this remarkably durable text continues so powerfully to capture the cultural imagination and why it still speaks to us over a gulf of centuries.

This book offers a new interpretation of the Roman historian Sallust: it reads his works as complex and engaged contributions to the intellectual life of his period, offering a coherent and contemporary perspective on the end of the Roman Republic.

This volume demonstrates that distinctive features of Roman satire found in the writings of Lucilius, Horace, and Persius derived from Greek Old Comedy.

The writings of Cicero contain hundreds of quotations of Latin poetry. This book examines his citations of Latin poets writing in diverse poetic genres and demonstrates the importance of poetry as an ethical, historical, and linguistic resource in the late Roman Republic. Hannah Čulík-Baird studies Cicero's use of poetry in his letters, speeches, and philosophical works, contextualizing his practice within the broader intellectual trends of contemporary Rome. Cicero's quotations of the 'classic' Latin poets, such as Ennius, Pacuvius, Accius, and Lucilius, are responsible for preserving the most significant fragments of verse from the second century BCE. The book also therefore examines the process of fragmentation in classical antiquity, with particular attention to the relationship between quotation and fragmentation. The Appendices collect perceptible instances of poetic citation (Greek as well as Latin) in the Ciceronian corpus.

Well-known as a brilliant general and politician, Caesar also played a fundamental role in the formation of the Latin literary language and history of Latin Literature. This volume provides both a clear introduction to Caesar as a man of letters and a fresh re-assessment of his literary achievements.