The Prudentius's epos. A bridge between Classicism and Latin Middle Ages

Essay from the year 2017 in the subject Classic Philology - Latin philology - Medivial and Modern Latin, , language: English, abstract: This essay deals with the Prudentius's Epos and tries to link Classicism and Latin Middle Ages.

In the imperial era the epic genre had undergone important modifications to its origins and developed radically with the coming of Christianity. The dissemination of Christ's message covered all areas of culture and had deep repercussions on literary writing. The idea that literary production should be put to the service of the spread of faith went ahead and this ended up altering the formal features of new works. Unlike the Greek and Latin literature, that generally had an elitist destination, the Christian writers were also aimed to the humblest sections of population until then excluded from the literary communication. The novelties of the new Christian literature (the desire to speak to everyone, the approach to everyday life, the attribution of new importance to simple things) ended up scrapping the traditional set of literary genres, including the epic genre. Almost all literary genres used in Greek and Latin literature were reused by Christian writers, but modified for new needs and new contents.