Novis e antiquis: a ars poetica romana entre a tradição e a inovação na ótica das elegias catulianas e ovidianas (séculos I a.C./I d.C.)

Abstract

When one gets in touch with poetry from the vast ancient world, it is possible to notice their pedagogic value associated to the ability to spread and reinforce social, moral, poetic and political values. Through aemulatio and imitatio procedures, writers were able to claim their authority by merging imitation and innovation, always referring to the traditions of their predecessors. When we analyze elegiac poems from Catullus and Ovid (I BC/I AD), both considered to be Latin, we try to comprehend how roman ars poetica appears in these records. They both lived through the frontier period, between the ending of res publica and the beginning of Augustus’s principate. Aspects concerning the imitatio of their predecessors were left to us throughout their work. We believe that these poets creative imitation dialogued not only with the poetic tradition from before, but also with moral and social tradition of what we call mores maiorum.