Words and the Poet

Throughout his vast literary output to a surprising extent Vergil avoided artifacts of poetic diction like archaism and grecism preferring instead ordinary language that grew from the common stock of the Latin tongue such as colloquialisms and prosaisms. This remarkably coherent and readable study identifies and categorizes such diction in Vergil''s writings showing further how such comparatively unpromising material was converted by the poet''s methods of combination (unctura) into poetry. In a critical analysis Lyne draws parallels between Horace''s procedures in combining works to make them new and Vergil''s bold combinations which veritably extort unexpected and novel sense.