Latin literature: Quick Facts

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fabula togata blanditia facundia Ciceronian rhetoric fabula palliata Hisperic style gratiarum actio litterae curiosius scriptae fabula praetext satura English literature French literature African literature American literature Arabic literature Italian literature German literature Spanish literature Japanese literature Latin American literature

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Key People

St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas

Italian Christian theologian and philosopher

Portrait of Desiderius Erasmus, shown in dark robes and cap, writing with a quill at a desk, after Quinten Massijs, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Erasmus

Dutch humanist

Horace, bronze medal, 4th century; in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris

Horace

Roman poet

Marble bust of Marcus Tullius Cicero, shown with short hair and draped clothing, displayed against a black background.

Cicero

Roman statesman, scholar, and writer

Ancient Roman mosaic showing the poet Virgil seated and writing, flanked by the muses Clio and Melpomene, displayed in a decorative border.

Virgil

Roman poet

Engraving of Petrarch wearing a laurel wreath and a robe, holding a closed book in his left hand.

Petrarch

Italian poet

Ovid

Ovid

Roman poet

Tacitus

Tacitus

Roman historian

Oil portrait of Hugo de Groot, also known as Hugo Grotius, by the workshop of Michiel Janszoon van Mierevelt, showing him with a ruffled white collar and dark clothing.

Hugo Grotius

Dutch statesman and scholar

Catullus, bust in Sirmione, Italy.

Catullus

Roman poet

Livy

Livy

Roman historian

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Sextus Propertius

Roman poet

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Plautus

Roman dramatist

Lucretius

Lucretius

Latin poet and philosopher

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Martial

Roman poet

Juvenal

Juvenal

Roman poet

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Gaius Petronius Arbiter

Roman author

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Terence

Roman dramatist

Seneca

Seneca

Roman philosopher and statesman [4 BCE – 65 CE]

Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Elder

Roman scholar

Hand with pencil writing on page. (handwriting; write)

Word Nerd Quiz

4:043 Dickinson, Emily: A Life of Letters, This is my letter to the world/That never wrote to me; I'll tell you how the Sun Rose/A Ribbon at a time; Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul

Famous Poets and Poetic Form

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) only confirmed photograph of Emily Dickinson. 1978 scan of a Daguerreotype. ca. 1847; in the Amherst College Archives. American poet. See Notes:

Poetry: First Lines