This book by one of the preeminent Virgil scholars of our day is the first comprehensive study of ekphrasis in Virgil's final masterpiece, the Aeneid. Virgil uses ekphrasis-a self-contained aside that generates a pause in the narrative to describe a work of art or other object-to tell us something about the grander text in which it is embedded, says Michael C. J. Putnam. Individually and as a group, Virgil's ekphrases enrich the reader's understanding of the meaning of the epic. Putnam shows how the descriptions of works of art, and of people, places, and even animals, provide metaphors for the entire poem and reinforce its powerful ambiguities. Putnam offers insightful analyses of the most extensive and famous ekphrases in the Aeneid-the paintings in Juno's temples in Carthage, the Daedalus frieze, and the shield of Aeneas. He also considers shorter and less well known examples-the stories of Ganymede, the Trojan shepherd swept into the sky by an amorous Jupiter; the fifty daughters of Danaus, ordered by their father to kill their husbands on their wedding night; and Virgil's original tale of a domesticated wild stag whose killing sparks a war between Trojans and Italians. These ekphrases incorporate major themes of the Aeneid, an enduring formative text of the Western tradition, and provide a rich variety of interpretive perspectives on the poem.

The lives of Catullus and Horace overlap by a dozen years in the first century BC. Yet, though they are the undisputed masters of the lyric voice in Roman poetry, Horace directly mentions his great predecessor, Catullus, only once, and this reference has often been taken as mocking. In fact, Horace's allusion, far from disparaging Catullus, pays him a discreet compliment by suggesting the challenge that his accomplishment presented to his successors, including Horace himself. In "Poetic Interplay," the first book-length study of Catullus's influence on Horace, Michael Putnam shows that the earlier poet was probably the single most important source of inspiration for Horace's "Odes," the later author's magnum opus.

Except in some half-dozen poems, Catullus is not, technically, writing lyric because his favored meters do not fall into that category. Nonetheless, however disparate their preferred genres and their stylistic usage, Horace found in the poetry of Catullus, whatever its mode of presentation, a constant stimulus for his imagination. And, despite the differences between the two poets, Putnam's close readings reveal that many of Horace's poems echo Catullus verbally, thematically, or both. By illustrating how Horace often found his own voice even as he acknowledged Catullus's genius, Putnam guides us to a deeper appreciation of the earlier poet as well.

Jacopo Sannazaro (1456-1530), considered by some authorities the finest Neo-Latin poet of the Italian Renaissance, spent most of his career in Naples, where he was a member and ultimately the head of the Accademia Pontaniana. He is most famous for having written, in Italian, the first pastoral romance in European literature, the "Arcadia" (1504). But after this early work, Sannazaro devoted himself entirely to Latin poetry modeled on his beloved Vergil. In addition to his epic "The Virgin Birth" (1526), which earned him the title of "the Christian Vergil," he also composed "Piscatory Eclogues, " an innovative adaption of the eclogue form, as well as elegies, epigrams, and a number of shorter works. This volume contains the first complete English translation of all of Sannazaro's poetry in Latin, accompanied by extensive notes.

In this collection of twelve of his essays, distinguished Virgil scholar Michael Putnam examines the "Aeneid" from several different interpretive angles. He identifies the themes that permeate the epic, provides detailed interpretations of its individual books, and analyzes the poem's influence on later writers, including Ovid, Lucan, Seneca, and Dante. In addition, a major essay on wrathful Aeneas and the tactics of "Pietas" is published here for the first time.

Putnam first surveys the intellectual development that shaped Virgil's poetry. He then examines several of the poem's recurrent dichotomies and metaphors, including idealism and realism, the line and the circle, and piety and fury. In succeeding chapters, he examines in detail the meaning of particular books of the "Aeneid" and argues that a close reading of the end of the epic is crucial for understanding the poem as a whole and Virgil's goals in composing it.

The work of the Latin elegiac poet Tibullus (c. 55-19 b.c.) is characterized by an artful, witty "simplicity," and it relies on repetition, ambiguity, irony, and paradox for its effect. His poetry appealed to his countrymen in his own time, as it still does to students today, and this textbook is designed to explain and enhance that appeal.

The commentary presented here is limited to the sixteen poems which comprise the first two books of the corpus Tibullianum, that is, to poems authentically by Tibullus. The notes focus on the needs of students approaching Latin elegy for the first time, but they will also prove useful to the more experienced student of Latin or to scholars in other languages. The editor has tried to balance matters of fact with occasional fresh interpretations. One introduction records what is known of the poet's life and discusses the rise of Latin elegy. The meter of the poems is explained, and Tibullus' style is examined.

Tibullus is considered one of the finest exponents of Latin lyric in the golden age of Rome, during the Emperor Augustus' 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. This title is 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. This title includes the poems of Sulpicia and Lygdamus, transmitted with the text of Tibullus and formerly ascribed to him.

Tibullus is considered one of the finest exponents of Latin lyric in the golden age of Rome, during the Emperor Augustus' 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. This title is 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. This title includes the poems of Sulpicia and Lygdamus, transmitted with the text of Tibullus and formerly ascribed to him.

This is the first book devoted to Horace's Carmen Saeculare, a poem commissioned by Roman emperor Augustus in 17 B.C.E. for choral performance at the Ludi Saeculares, the Secular Games. The poem is the first fully preserved Latin hymn whose circumstances of presentation are known, and it is the only lyric of Horace we can be certain was first presented orally. Michael C. J. Putnam offers a close and sensitive reading of this hymn, shedding new light on the richness and virtuosity of its poetry, on the many sources Horace drew on, and on the poem's power and significance as a public ritual. A rich and compelling work, this poem is a masterpiece, Putnam shows, and it represents a crucial link in the development of Rome's outstanding lyric poet.

The author, a distinguished classical scholar, sheds new light on the controversial ending of one of the most acclaimed epic poems in the Western tradition, Virgil's Aeneid. Examining the savage rampage upon which Aeneas embarks in the tenth book of the poem, Putnam traces the sources and manifestations of the hero's emotions, and concludes with a detailed reading of the poem's closing lines. An epilogue surveys the relationship between Virgil's denouement and aspects of Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Each chapter is an exercise in close reading, which is to say, in scrutinizing the writer's art as it enhances the ideas its masterpiece projects. Through an examination of human values and of the ways they are shaped and delineated by a great imagination, the book aims to further the position of Virgil as one of the most original of poets in our humanist canon, himself emulating Homer but deeply influential on the literature of our world, from Dante to Derek Walcott and Seamus Heaney.