A Propertius Reader: Eleven Selected Elegies

The erotic elegy of Propertius reveals the work of a consummate artist, one who deftly weaves public themes into the emotional experiences of a first-person narrator. The poems in this selection reflect an evolution from a private focus on erotic love to more public and political themes, charting a gradual if ambiguous accommodation to the interests of the Augustan regime. Compelling portraits of passion are entwined with varied features of Rome’s momentous historical transition from republic to empire: the trauma of recent civil wars, nostalgia for an irrecoverable past, the stirrings of social legislation, and the opulence of foreign luxuries from trade and conquest. Selections also display Propertius’s innovative treatment of gender and the psychology of desire, and provide insight into the origins of Western attitudes toward erotic feeling.

Bowditch’s commentary aims to make Propertian elegy—with its challenging syntax, wide-ranging use of myth, and novel use of diction—accessible to more readers, and reveals Propertius as a poet who defined a uniquely Roman genre of literature.

Special Features

Introduction to Propertius, his style, and his elegy’s social and political context and its place within the genre 606 lines of unadapted Latin text of eleven complete Propertian elegies from all four volumes of his work: 1.1, 1.3, 2.1, 2.10, 2.16, 2.31, 2.32, 3.3, 3.11, 4.8, 4.9 Notes at the back and complete vocabulary Two maps and five illustrations Suggested reading