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The Roman Poets Of The Augustan Age: Virgil
The Roman Poets Of The Augustan Age Virgil Author:W. Y. Sellar Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: efforts of the previous centuries. Much of its literary inspira- t tion is derived from the age immediately preceding it, and I from still older native sources. ... more »The thought of Lucretius acted upon the mind of Virgil through the force both of sympathy and antagonism, as a strong original nature acts upon one which is at once receptive of influence and possessed of f1rm native convictions. The national sentiment of Ennius and the censorious spirit of Lucilius reappeared in new forms in the Augustan poetry; while the more humane and social feelings, and the enjoyment of beauty in Nature and art, fostered by Greek studies, as well as the taste for less elevated pleasures, stimulated by the life of a luxurious capital, are elements which the poetry of the early Empire has in common with that of the last years of the Republic. But the poetry of the new era has also certain marked characteristics, the result not so much of antecedent as of concomitant circumstances, which proclaim its affinity with great literary epochs of other nations rather than with any period of the national literature. By Voltaire the Augustan Age at Rome is ranked with the Age of Pericles at Athens, that of Lorenzo de Medici at Florence, and that of Louis XIV. in France, as one of four epochs in which arts and letters attained their highest perfection. The affinity between the Augustan Age and those of Pericles and Lorenzo is more superficial than real. They1 were all indeed periods in which the cultivation of the arts to the highest degree of perfection was fostered by the enlightened patronage of the eminent men who have given their name to their eras. But the position of Augustus, as an absolute ruler, acted more directly and potently, as a modifying and restraining power, on the thoughts and feelings expres...« less