Library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern . represents in his life and his geniusthe fine flower of his age and country. He was born at Verona of a wealthy and distinguished family, whileItaly was convulsed by the civil wars of Matins and Sulla; he diedat the age of thirty, while Caesar was completing the conquest ofGaul, and the Republic, though within a few days of its seemed full of the pride of life. The rush and excitement of thosethrilling years is mirrored fully in the life and poetry of , travel, politics, criticism, all the thousandfol
Library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern . represents in his life and his geniusthe fine flower of his age and country. He was born at Verona of a wealthy and distinguished family, whileItaly was convulsed by the civil wars of Matins and Sulla; he diedat the age of thirty, while Caesar was completing the conquest ofGaul, and the Republic, though within a few days of its seemed full of the pride of life. The rush and excitement of thosethrilling years is mirrored fully in the life and poetry of , travel, politics, criticism, all the thousandfold and ever-changing events and interests of the age. come before us in theirmost vivid form and at their highest pressure, in this brief volumeof lyrics. But all come involved with and overshadowed by a Storywholly personal to himself and immortal in its fascination: the storyof an immense and ill-fated love that fed its lifes flame with self-substantial fuel,8 and mounted in the morning glories of sunrise onlyto go down in thunder and tempest before Valerius Catullus „-fin CATULLUS There are perhaps no love poems in the world like these. OfSappho, seemingly the greatest poet of her sex, we can only dallywith surmise from mutilated fragments. No one else in the ancientworld comes into the account. The Middle Ages involved love inex-tricably with mysticism. When Europe shook the Middle Ages off,it had begun to think. Exquisite reflections on love, innocent pas-torals, adorable imagery, — these it could produce; in the France ofthe Pleiade for instance, or in the England of Greene and Campion:but thought and passion keep ill company. Once only, a centuryago, a genius as fierce and flame-like as that of Catullus rose to theheight of this argument. An intractable language, sterilizing sur-roundings, bad models, imperfect education, left Burns hopelesslydistanced; yet the quintessential flame that he shares with Catullushas served to make him the idol of a nation, and a h
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectliterature, bookyear1
