Practical Approaches to Tibullus the Idealist
| Dates: | 25 June 2015 - 26 June 2015 |
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| Times: | 14:00 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Conferences |
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| Organiser: | School of Arts, Languages and Cultures |
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The 'forgotten man' of Augustan poetry, Albius Tibullus needs assessment beyond elegy proper and etymology, to see how the wallflower wins through to immortality. Many moderns have written him off, most energetically at the beginning of the 20th Century: 'clearly a minor poet' (T. C. Williams in 1905); 'the simplicity of the thought and diction of Tibullus adapts itself to the needs of those whose knowledge of Latin is comparatively in an early stage' (J. P. Postgate in 1903); 'literary echoes of him are rare, quotations from him are uncommon' (K. F. Smith in 1913). This is unfair: Quintilian called him the 'most terse and elegant writer' of elegy and Ovid called him 'cultus'. This conference aims to establish why Horace and Ovid esteemed Tibullus enough to dedicate poems to him, by situating Tibullus in his traditions and contexts.
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Knowles Committee Room
Whitworth Building
Manchester
