Volume 41, Number 16 · October 6, 1994
The Long Latin Line
By Jasper Griffin
Latin Literature: A History
by Gian Biagio Conte, translated by Joseph B. Solodow, by revised by Don Fowler and Glenn W. Most
Johns Hopkins University Press, 827 pp., $65.00
Histories of literature are a curious form of history. When we consider most histories we have no difficulty distinguishing them from their subject matter. On the one hand there are clothes and shoes and jewelry; on the other, histories of fashion. On the one hand there are armies, equipment, and battles; on the other, histories of warfare. A history of an entire literature is different, for here an extensive book describes and categorizes the contents of other books. Professor Conte, of the University of Pisa, remarks in the introduction to his long Latin Literature: A History that in the case of late and little-read authors 'in this field textbooks often take the place of a direct meeting with the texts.' Not only in that case, alas; for many students writing papers, for many teachers and writers in search of a quick recourse, Conte's history will be a substitute for the texts it describes. It may even, sometimes, be in competition with them for the reader's attention.
Review, 4616 words
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