Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

The primary aim of any literary history is to foster a deeper appreciation of the
creative writing which it describes; to define the qualities of the works themselves
must be its main concern. Roman literature, however, demands the
reader's attention for a second reason, because more than any other national
literature it has dictated the forms and modes of thought of subsequent European
letters. For more than fifteen centuries after Virgil and Livy, Latin remained
the learned language of Europe, constantly evoking the great auctores of
the classical period. Then, side by side with the Latin writings of the High
Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the vernacular literatures of the twelfth to the
sixteenth centuries likewise boast their proud descent from the antique Romans,
who continue to breathe inspiration into Western letters after the Renaissance.
This epilogue concerns itself chiefly with the medieval period and the more
important classical influences within it.
The ways in which the Latin classics impinged on the imaginative experience
of later generations were shaped by a complex of political, economic and social
factors but above all by the emergence of dominant Christian thinkers in the
fourth-century West. These Christian leaders, emerging shortly after the
establishment of Christianity as the favoured religion of the state, exploited
their education in classical eloquence to proclaim the superiority of Christian
beliefs over traditional Roman values. As Christians they inherited attitudes
towards classical literature in which the denunciation of a Tertullian rang
louder than the approval of a Lactan this; as educated Romans they found their
modes of thought and powers of expression moulded by the authors they sought
to reject. Thus in Africa, Italy, Gaul, Spain an ambivalence towards classical
literature is evinced not only in the same milieux but even in the same individuals.
The Ambrose who proclaimed that the scriptures contained all necessary
instruction was the Ambrose who exploited Cicero's De officiis for his De
officiis ministrorum. The Jerome who asks quidfacit cum Apostolo Cicero? ' What
has Cicero to do with Paul?', is the Jerome whose justification of classical
studies elsewhere encourages later churchmen in their pursuit of them. The
Paulinus who bids Ausonius reject the pagan Muses and spurns the voices of
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