1974 study of Latin poetry designed to encourage fresh readings and to illustrate critical approaches to the literature.

A volume dedicated to studies in Latin poetry, beginning with an examination of Saturnian verse and ending with an investigation into how much Ovid actually knew of the law, and how he exploited this knowledge with piquancy and inventiveness in his writings.

In these studies of Latin poetry Niall Rudd demonstrates a variety of critical methods and approaches. He shows how it can be fruitful at different times to consider the historical background of a poem, its language or structure, its place in a literary tradition, the role of critical paradigms, and so on. But if no single approach has special and invariable authority this does not imply critical anarchy. Each has its own validity for different purposes, its own strengths and limitations. The reader must be versatile and sensitive to a range of possibilities, but not doctrinaire.