This study examines the Gospel citations in the Paschale Opus and the Paschale Carmen, the twin works of the 5th-century Latin poet Sedulius. To date no study had conducted a full investigation of the origin and use of Sedulius's Gospel sources in both works, composed in the middle of a crucial period in the evolution of the Latin Bible. Sedulius's biblical citations were broken up into variant sites that were analysed against the principal traditions in the Old Latin and Vulgate versions of the Gospels. The full collection of these variant sites can be found in the Appendix. The analysis of these variant readings proposes that Sedulius's Gospel citations in both works are principally Old Latin, closest among unmixed Old Latin codices to the Veronensis (VL4) in Matthew, the Corbiensis II (VL8) in Luke and the Usserianus I in John (VL14), but his citations also reveal that Sedulius made significant use of the Vulgate, especially in book two of the Paschale Opus. Sedulius's biblical text reveals his use of homilies and the importance of the liturgy on the composition of his works but his biblical citations are nearly always paralleled by an Old Latin or Vulgate manuscript witness rather than those forms found in the earliest witnesses to the liturgy. Finally, the study's findings have important consequences for our knowledge concerning the use and dissemination of what came to be known as the Vulgate version of the Gospels.

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The aim of the study is to analyse the technique of the Silver Latin epicists through an investigation of their extended similes. By examining how Lucan, Valerius Flaccus, Statius and Silius ltalious adapt traditional oomparison motifs, produce variations on a theme or improvise their own analogies, the intention is to reveal the poets' treatment of the similes and, since they are symptomatic of the poems as a whole, to dissect the style of the post-Vergllian epics and assess the writers' attitude to their art. The basic approach is to classify the Silver Age similes thematically, dividing them into groups according to their subject matter. Each simile is then described and evaluated against its literary heritage, tradition and innovation being the criteria employed. The emerging traits and trends, which in combination impart to these similes (and hence to the epics) their peculiar character, are discussed in detail. There is an overall adherence to the range of subject matter established in the images of the Aeneid, with a modernisation of cer1ain themes rather than drastic innovation. 'The Silver Age mark is impressed on traditional motifs by an apparently irresistible urge to embellish; frequently the ornaments chosen ostentatiously display knowledge gleaned from encyolopaedic sources. Bookishness tends to supplant observation at first hand and genuine poetic insight. A more radical change is discernible in the application of the Similes, a remarkably greater proportion mirroring psychological rather than pictorial contexts. Ingenious analogies are contrived illustrating

In the introduction an evaluation of the sources for a biography oi Tibullus is followed by a concise account of his life and circumstances, and of the main themes and characters of book I. The chronology of book I as a whole is discussed, and an attempt is made to establish the relative dates of the first books of Tibullus and Propertius. Finally,the theory that Tibullus was analogist is considered. The analyses of the individual poems begin with introductory essays. These contain references to all works of scholarship which have contributed towards the understanding of the particular elegy and which propound theories that deserve some mention, if only for refutation. The structure and background-situation of the poem are considered, and there is a detailed discussion of the main themes or genre with particular regard to the individuality of Tibullus' treatment and his personal contributions. The commentary on the text itself consists of remarks usually on a couplet by couplet basis, punctuated by sectional notes. The latter are concerned particularly with the relevance, content and structure of the individual sections of the poem. In the former remarks, textual points that substantially affect the interpretation of the elegy are considered in depth. Themes and motifs are provided with fuller parallels and references than previous commentators have supplied for greater elucidation and a better understanding of Tibullan innovations and variations. On points of vocabulary there is a full discussion of unusual or obscure words and phrases, together with remarks on the tone of the language and the part which the choice of words plays in the expression of ideas. Linguistic innovations and imitations are also pointed out. As regards metre and grammar the main emphasis is on a consideration of difficulties and abnormalities.

This thesis situates itself within the field of classical reception, and explores the appropriation and imitation of Latin erotic elegy (Catullus, Propertius, Ovid, Sulpicia) in the love poetry of sixteenth-century England. It shows imitatio to be a dynamic, rich and sophisticated practice, one which may be productively read as both a form of intertextuality and reception, terms which capture its contingent and active nature. The readings here re-calibrate Petrarch’s canzoniere suggesting that this influential sequence of love sonnets is itself a moralised re-writing of Roman erotic elegy. By re-framing the ‘Petrarchan’ love poetry of Thomas Wyatt, Philip Sidney, John Donne and Mary Sidney as elegiac receptions, the readings here re-open these familiar texts and offer fresh interpretations of how they can be made to mean. The introduction traces the presence of Latin love elegy in the early modern period, and shows that a modern scholarly over-reliance on Petrarch and Ovid has obscured the way Renaissance love poetry is also shaped by and through its relationships to the texts of Catullus, Propertius and Sulpicia. The four chapters which follow trace these intertextual relationships in detail through readings of a small number of poems: those of Catullus and Wyatt, Propertius and Sidney, Ovid and Donne, and Sulpicia and Mary Sidney. The interventions which this project makes are two-fold: firstly it applies modern theories of reception and intertextuality to Renaissance love poetry, and refreshes the way imitatio may be read. Secondly, it re-frames ‘Petrarchan’ love poetry of sixteenth-century England and reveals it to be a complex, subtle and sometimes revisionary re-writing of Latin love elegy. By reading the multiple concerns of elegy and its sometimes problematic uses of love, gender and erotic desire into the selected English texts, this project offers fresh interpretations of both bodies of poetry, and demonstrates that Roman elegy has a vital and complex presence in the poetics of sixteenth-century England.

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This thesis (‘A commentary on Ovid Ars Amatoria 2, 1-294’) is submitted to The University of Manchester for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. It examines the methods through which Ovid presents internal unity and structure to the poem: through the use of the progress metaphor, and a sense of narrative progression. It also examines the generic positioning of the Ars within Ovid’s wider oeuvre, with special reference to the Amores and Heroides. It treats the poet’s use of mythological exempla, and how these are used as models (whether positive or negative) for the lover. This provides rich intertextuality with Ovid’s elegiac predecessors. As well as mythological figures, Ovid uses the models of the kolax (‘Flatterer’) and of the canvassing electioneer as a means of reconciling the lover’s traditional role as ‘slave of love’ with that of a free Roman male. These themes are exposed and analysed through a systematic, line-by-line commentary on the first 294 lines of Ars 2.

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