A History of Christian-Latin Poetry From the Beginnings to the Close of the Middle Ages

by F.J.E. Raby

Shipped from UK, please allow 10 to 21 business days for arrival. Second Edition. Thick Royal 4to. Very good clean tight sound square, no bookplate, inscription or marks of any kind. Bound in very good bright gilt lettered wide weave navy linen cloth, slight small crease to head of spine, otherwise crisp and excellent, well held in joints and hinges, lower edge attractive deckle untrimmed. A great addition for reader, scholar and collector alike.

494 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1927

About the author

Frederic James Edward Raby, FBA (11 December 1888 – 30 October 1966) was a scholar in the field of medieval Latin literature. His reputation was based principally on two works - Christian Latin Poetry (1927) and Secular Latin Poetry (1934) - which together chart the immense field of medieval Latin poetry from its beginnings in the Christian-Latin poetry of late antiquity to the Latin hymns of the fourteenth century.

Reviews

[Zach Michael]

It's really rare for me that a book completely changes my interests like this one did. Beautifully written and engaging, I found myself in love not just with it, but with the whole of the history surrounding it. The book has a secular tone, but treated the Christian themes inside, not with contempt, but with a tone of respect towards the religion which defined its subjects' lives. There was something especially wonderful in reading these writers in their original Latin rather than in translation; I obviously can't comment on the quality of their verses as my ability to read Latin is surface level and mostly informed by my knowledge of English/French, but, even still, to see them in their own words allowed me to almost understand them better. As I mentioned, it was written from a secular point of view, but I think that was really helpful for me, as a Christian, to see what the "scholarly" understanding of many of the things which I practice or have an understanding of (the emerging of veneration, the ideas around the Eucharist, the glorification of Mary) without the bias of a Christian--even if I hold it as true/have a different idea surrounding it. Furthermore, this really put into light something which I've seen done often times with poetry which really bothers me: the dismissal of poetry or liturgical writings and treatment of them as lesser because of their place as religious. Greek liturgical chant has both rhythm (not as much meter due to changes in the language) and merit but one doesn't really see it treated seriously as a work with poetical value. Pieces written for church use are still worth examining, in spite of their place as purely religious; there’s still art in them.
Anyways, I now want to go into medieval studies so that's fun.