This volume offers a broad introduction to one of the most exciting chapters of Late Antiquity through direct testimony from one of the last representatives of Roman Antiquity, Ausonius of Bordeaux, and his radical Christian protégé, the populist bishop and experimental poet Paulinus of Nola. The first comprehensive volume in English dedicated to these works in over a century, this book also offers representative selections from Paulinus’ vast poetic output, from the publicly performed poems that mark his contribution to the emerging cult of the saints to his experimental Christianization of a wide range of Classical genres. Preceded by a substantial introduction discussing the modern significance of these works and their original contexts, the translation is accompanied by running notes for ease of reference and an interpretive commentary rich with illustrative parallels. Taken together, the correspondence with Ausonius and the selections from Paulinus epitomize the personal, political, and spiritual conflicts of their age, offering a lively and concentrated introduction to the life and thought of these two underappreciated contemporaries of Jerome and Augustine. Accompanied by new and provocative interpretations with detailed but concise historical and biographical guidance, this accessible and stylish translation will appeal to scholars and students of Classics, Late Antiquity, religious studies, social history, and world literature.

Nearly all of us have studied poetry and been taught to look for the symbolic as well as literal meaning of the text. Is this the way the ancients saw poetry? In Birth of the Symbol, Peter Struck explores the ancient Greek literary critics and theorists who invented the idea of the poetic "symbol." The book notes that Aristotle and his followers did not discuss the use of poetic symbolism. Rather, a different group of Greek thinkers--the allegorists--were the first to develop the notion. Struck extensively revisits the work of the great allegorists, which has been underappreciated. He links their interest in symbolism to the importance of divination and magic in ancient times, and he demonstrates how important symbolism became when they thought about religion and philosophy. "They see the whole of great poetic language as deeply figurative," he writes, "with the potential always, even in the most mundane details, to be freighted with hidden messages." Birth of the Symbol offers a new understanding of the role of poetry in the life of ideas in ancient Greece. Moreover, it demonstrates a connection between the way we understand poetry and the way it was understood by important thinkers in ancient times.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, Laura Kasischke unapologetically explores the dark and humorous realities of our lives.