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Ausonius: The Last Laugh

Publication |
2019

Abstract

Decimus Magnus Ausonius is the most prominent "worldly" Latin poet of Late Antiquity. "Worldly," not "pagan," because he was of the Christian faith and there are even some prayers that are a part of his literary work. "Worldly" in his case means: thoroughly filled with the traditional literary culture of Greek myths and Roman history, and cultivating literature mostly for literature's sake. In the early modern times he was criticized for his literary playfulness - and the post-modernist age rediscovered him as one of the greatest examples of intertextuality, literary experiment and of poetry "outside the grand narrative".