Propertius, Tibullus and Ovid: A Selection of Love Poetry

Book excerpt: This is the OCR-endorsed publication from Bloomsbury for the Latin AS and A-Level (Group 3) prescription of Ovid's Amores 1.1 and 2.5, Propertius 1.1 and Tibullus 1.1 with the A-Level (Group 4) prescription of Ovid's Amores 2.7 and 2.8, Propertius 1.3 and 2.14 and Tibullus 1.3, giving full Latin text, commentary and vocabulary, with a detailed introduction that also covers the prescribed text to be read in English for A Level. Propertius, Tibullus and Ovid are our three main writers of Latin love elegy. The selected poems depict the bitter-sweet love affairs of the poet-lovers and their mistresses, from the heartbreak of rejection to the elation at love reciprocated. While Propertius's and Ovid's setting is the city and their poems show us such details of urbane Roman life as drinking parties and elaborate hair-dressing, Tibullus introduces the idyll of the countryside to the genre. Their sophisticated poems combine intense emotion with wit and irony, and celebrate the life of love and their mistresses, Propertius's Cynthia, Tibullus's Delia and Nemesis, and Ovid's Corinna.