Latin Literature - Definition and Overview

The literature of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire written in the Latin language. The periods of Latin literature are conventionally divided into "Golden" Latin, or Golden Age, which covers approximately the period from the start of the first century BC up to the mid-first century AD, and Silver Latin, which covers the remainder of the Classical period. Anything after the mid-second century comes under the blanket description of "late" Latin literature, and tends to be studied for the light it sheds on the development of Latin into the Romance languages rather than for its literary merit (though there are exceptions, eg. Augustine of Hippo.)

Early Latin literature

Poetry

Ennius

Comedy

Plautus

Terence

Golden Age

Poetry

Lucretius : On the Nature of Things

Catullus

Vergil : Aeneid

Horace

Ovid : Metamorphoses

Tibullus

Propertius

Prose

Julius Caesar : Gallic Wars

Cicero : Catiline Orations

Historiography

Nepos

Sallust

Livy

Silver Latin

Poetry

Manilius

Lucan

Statius

Prose

Petronius : Satyricon

Pliny the Elder : Natural History

Quintilian

Pliny the Younger

Aulus Gellius

Apuleius

Theater

Seneca

Satire

Juvenal

Martial

Historiography

Tacitus

Suetonius

Latin Literature in the Late Antique period

Ammianus Marcellinus

Saint Augustine of Hippo

Ausonius

Boethius and Consolation of Philosophy

Distichs of Cato

Claudian

Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius

Paulinus of Nola

Sidonius Apollinaris

Sulpicius Severus

Mediæval and Christian Latin literature

Pierre Abélard

Aetheria

Albertus Magnus

St Thomas Aquinas : Pange Lingua : Summa Theologica

The Archpoet

Bede

Carmina Burana

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Gildas

Goliards

Gregory of Tours

Hiberno-Latin

St Isidore of Seville : Etymologiæ

St Jerome : Vulgate

Peter of Blois

Petrarch

Thomas of Celæno : Dies Iræ

Venantius Fortunatus

Walter of Châtillon

See also:

• Loeb Classical Library
• I Tatti Renaissance Library
• Mass (liturgy)
• Mass (music)
• Original Latin Texts (http://nefer-seba.net/latin/Texts.php)
• Latin Authors on the Web (http://users.telenet.be/herman.lauvrys/authorsl.htm)