Delia and Nemesis - The Elegies of Albius Tibullus provides an introduction to the first-century Latin Poet, Albius Tibullus, whose charming poetry ranks among the most delicate and sophisticated verse produced in the Augustan age. The author presents the material so that readers unfamiliar with the Latin language and history can access it easily.

"The Elegies of Tibullus" from Tibullus. Tibullus, latin poet and writer of elegies (55B.C.-19B.C.).

Tibullus is considered one of the finest exponents of Latin lyric in the golden age of Rome, during the Emperor Augustus’s reign, and his poetry retains its enduring beauty and appeal. Together these works provide an important document for anyone who seeks to understand Roman culture and sexuality and the origins of Western poetry. • The new translation by Rodney Dennis and Michael Putnam conveys to students the elegance and wit of the original poems. • Ideal for courses on classical literature, classical civilization, Roman history, comparative literature, and the classical tradition and reception. • The Latin verses will be printed side-by-side with the English text. • Explanatory notes and a glossary elucidate context and describe key names, places, and events. • An introduction by Julia Haig Gaisser provides the necessary historical and social background to the poet’s life and works. • Includes the poems of Sulpicia and Lygdamus, transmitted with the text of Tibullus and formerly ascribed to him.

This volume focuses on the nineteen elegiac poems of the Appendix Tibulliana, a series of little-known Latin elegies transmitted as Book 3 of the Corpus Tibullianum. Although it is accepted that they are not the work of Tibullus himself their actual authorship remains unclear and has been hotly disputed: they are notable especially for containing work attributed to Sulpicia, who may be the only female Latin poet we know of from pre-Christian antiquity. Though admittedly somewhat obscure, this volume argues that the elegies of the Appendix Tibulliana have been unjustly overlooked in traditional scholarship: rather than concentrating on what we don't know both the Introduction and the Commentary focus instead on broader contexts of discussion. The Introduction examines not only stylistic and textual matters, but also the genre of elegy, its main practitioners, poetic communities, and gender roles, while the Commentary examines whether and how the poems fit into their cycles, into the Corpus Tibullianum, and into the genre as a whole. Close reading of the individual elegies reveals that they have a lot to teach us, especially in light of the question of women as authors in antiquity and the notion of mutability of identity. Not only do they call into question the social and legal status of the participants in a 'standard' elegiac relationship and play with the gender norms of the actors and the genre, they also destabilize the commonly-held notion that elegy is personal poetry, rooted in autobiographical events experienced by one individual author. These valuable insights, more broadly applied, may have important consequences for traditional understanding of what elegy is and does.

This is the first full and detailed commentary on the second book of Tibullus' elegies since K.F. Smith's edition of 1913. It takes into account every significant advance in scholarship since then on Tibullus, elegy in general. The book provides an authoritative Latin text, based on the definitive Oxford Classical Text, an Introduction covering such topics as the chronology of Book II, its completeness and construction, and the main characters of the poems; and a comprehensive Commentary discussing all aspects of linguistic and literary interest in the poems: the problems of reference and the interpretation for instance, as well as notes on diction, style, themes, and metre. There are also introductory essays on each poem, discussing the background situation, genre, and main models. A critical appendix looks at all the textual points that substantially affect the understanding and appreciation of the elegies, a structural appendix explores the structure of the individual poems, and there are full indices.