Poetry: Ancient Poetry

From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Hail and farewell! The words of Catullus at his brother's tomb.
Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus
Advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
Ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
Et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem. MORE

Generally agreed to be the finest example of OLD ENGLISH literature, Beowulf, a poem of 3,182 lines, survives in a single manuscript, BL Cotton Vitellius A.xv, copied approximately 1000. MORE

From Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature
“Cædmon's Hymn” is one of the earliest extant Old English poems, and the only one where we know both the author and something of the circumstances of its composition. According to the story Bede tells in his Historia ecclesiastica (4 24), Cædmon was a stable hand with no knowledge of poetry. MORE

From Bloomsbury Dictionary of Myth
Metamorphoses (‘Changes’) was a collection of myths and folk-tales made by the Roman poet Ovid some time between 2 BCE and 8 CE. Ovid took his tales from ancient classical and Middle Eastern stories about gods and mortals who underwent mysterious transformations. MORE

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Title applied to two distinct works in Old Icelandic. The Poetic Edda, or Elder Edda, is a collection (late 13th cent.) of 34 mythological and heroic lays, most of which were composed c.800–c.1200, probably in Iceland or W Norway. MORE

From Chamber's Dictionary of the Unexplained
An ancient Chinese text, the authorship of which is traditionally attributed to the sage and philosopher Lao Tzu in the 6th century bc. MORE

From Bloomsbury Dictionary of Myth
The Aeneid ('story of Aeneas') is a Latin epic poem by Virgil. brought out after his death in 19 BCE. Its twelve sections tell of the fall of Troy, the wanderings of Aeneas and his companions in search of a new homeland,and their battles to win the area of Italy which became the site of the future Rome. MORE

From The Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature
An epic by the ancient Greek poet Homer. Its subject is the siege of Troy by an alliance of Greek states. MORE

From The Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature
An epic by the ancient Greek poet Homer. The hero, Odysseus King of Ithaca, is on his way home after the Trojan war, but he is blown off course and the return journey takes him ten years. MORE

From The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
Cædmon is widely regarded as the first English poet, and “Cædmon’s Hymn” or the “Hymn of Creation” is the earliest surviving example of Anglo-Saxon vernacular verse. Most of what is known of Cædmon comes from the religious historian BEDE, in his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. MORE

Roman poet, b. Verona. Of a well-to-do family, he went c.62 B.C. to Rome. He fell deeply in love, probably with Clodia, sister of Cicero's opponent Publius Clodius. MORE

From Chamber's Biographical Dictionary
He was born on the farm of Borg in Iceland. His father had emigrated to Iceland from Norway, and Egil became a Viking warrior and court poet. MORE

Greek poet. He is thought to have lived later than Homer, but there is no absolute certainty about the dates of his life. Hesiod portrays himself as a Boeotian farmer. MORE

Principal figure of ancient Greek literature; the first European poet. Two epic poems are attributed to Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. MORE

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Indian dramatist and poet. He is regarded as the greatest figure in classical Sanskrit literature. Except that he was retained by the Gupta court, no facts concerning his life are known. His three surviving plays are Sakuntala (or Shakuntala), Vikramorvasi, and Malavikagnimitra. MORE

Chinese poet of the T'ang dynasty. He was born in what is now Sichuan prov. Most authorities believe that he was a Taoist; Li Po's unconcern for worldly preferment and his love for retirement was expressive of both Taoism and the delicate romanticism found in his poetry. MORE

Latin poet. Although trained for the law, he preferred the company of the literary coterie at Rome. He enjoyed early and widespread fame as a poet and was known to the emperor Augustus. MORE

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Greatest of the early Greek lyric poets (Plato calls her "the tenth Muse" ), b. Mytilene on Lesbos. Facts about her life are scant. She was an aristocrat, who wrote poetry for her circle of friends, mostly but not exclusively women. MORE

From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
The greatest poet of ancient Rome, Publius Virgilius Maro (70–19 bc), born near Mantua (hence called the Mantuan Swan), a master of epic, didactic and idyllic poetry. MORE

From A Biographical Dictionary of Artists
The Chinese landscape painter Wang Wei was a classically trained scholar poet and official, whose country home was in Wang Ch'uan, Shensi. MORE