Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. Beginning around the 3rd century BC, it took two centuries to become a dominant literature of Ancient Rome, with many educated Romans still reading and writing in Ancient Greek, as late as Marcus Aurelius (121–180 AD). Latin literature was in many ways a continuation of Greek literature, using many of the same forms.
Latin was the language of the ancient Romans, but it was also the lingua franca of Europe throughout the middle ages, so Latin literature includes not only Roman authors like Cicero, Vergil, Ovid and Lucretius, but also includes European writers after the fall of the Empire from religious writers like St. Augustine (354–430 AD), to secular writers like Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and Spinoza (1632–1677).
Read more about Latin Literature: Characteristics of Latin Literature, Latin in Translation
Famous quotes containing the words latin and/or literature:
“In my dealing with my child, my Latin and Greek, my accomplishments and my money stead me nothing; but as much soul as I have avails. If I am wilful, he sets his will against mine, one for one, and leaves me, if I please, the degradation of beating him by my superiority of strength. But if I renounce my will, and act for the soul, setting that up as umpire between us two, out of his young eyes looks the same soul; he reveres and loves with me.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Most literature on the culture of adolescence focuses on peer pressure as a negative force. Warnings about the “wrong crowd” read like tornado alerts in parent manuals. . . . It is a relative term that means different things in different places. In Fort Wayne, for example, the wrong crowd meant hanging out with liberal Democrats. In Connecticut, it meant kids who weren’t planning to get a Ph.D. from Yale.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)