Synopses & Reviews
Flamboyant and passionate, the love poems of Propertius are among the most beautiful to have been written in any language. In this eloquent and consistently faithful translation, W. G. Shepherd does full justice to the work of this remarkable Latin poet.
Born about 48 B.C. in Umbria, Sextus Propertius was one of a group of poets influenced by Greek Alexandrian mannerism who developed the genre of Roman love elegy. Through shifting moods of ecstasy and frustration, his early works celebrate his obsessive love for his mistress, Cynthia. All his work is distinguished by strong visual imagery, richness of language, and an intensely personal style.
Synopsis
Of all the Greek and Latin love poets, Propertius (c.50-10 BC) is one of those who perhaps holds most immediate appeal for the twentieth century reader. His helpless infatuation for the sinister figure of his mistress Cynthia forms the main subject of his poetry, and is analysed with a tormented but witty grandeur in all its changing moods - from ecstacy to suicidal despair. The son of an Umbrian landowner who fought on the wrong side in the Civil War after Caesar's murder, he lost his father and most of his family estate in boyhood and was brought up by his mother. He was able nevertheless to reject a legal or military career and to devote his life to the art of poetry, in which he is a far more self-conscious practitioner than most of the other Latin poets. His modern popularity was furthered in particular by Ezra Pound's Homage to Sextus Propertius (1919).
About the Author
W. G. Shepherd was educated at Brentwood School and Jesus College, Cambridge. He is the translator of the Penguin Classics edition of Horace's Complete Odes and Epodes and the author of four volumes of poetry.
Betty Radice was the editor or translator of numerous works in the Penguin Classics series and the author of Who?s Who in the Ancient World.