Elegiae cover

Elegiae

by Albius Tibullus

This is the first full and detailed commentary on the second book of Tibullus' elegies since K. F. Smith's edition of 1913. It takes into account every significant advance in scholarship since then both on Tibullus and elegy in general. The book provides an authoritative Latin text, based on the definitive Oxford Classical Text; an introduction covering such topics as the chronology of Book II, its completeness and construction, and the main characters of the poems; and a comprehensive commentary discussing all aspects of linguistic and literary interest in the poems: the problems of reference and interpretation, for instance, as well diction, style, themes, and metre. There are also introductory essays on each poem, discussing the background situation, genre, and main models. A critical appendix looks at all the textual points that substantially affect the understanding and appreciation of the elegies, a structural appendix explores the structure of the individual poems, and there are full indices.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?