Alexander Pope was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, Pope is best known for his satirical and discursive poetry including The Rape of the Lock, The Dunciad, and An Essay on Criticism, and for his translations of Homer.
A lost literary work is a document, literary work, or piece of multimedia produced some time in the past, of which no surviving copies are known to exist. It can be known only through reference. This term most commonly applies to works from the classical world, although it is increasingly used in relation to modern works. A work may be lost to history through the destruction of an original manuscript and all later copies.
Quintus Curtius Rufus was a Roman historian, probably of the 1st century, author of his only known and only surviving work, Historiae Alexandri Magni, "Histories of Alexander the Great", or more fully Historiarum Alexandri Magni Macedonis Libri Qui Supersunt, "All the Books That Survive of the Histories of Alexander the Great of Macedon." Much of it is missing. Apart from his name on the manuscripts, nothing else certain is known of him. This fact alone has led philologists to believe that he had another historical identity, to which, due to the accidents of time, the link has been broken. A few theories exist. They are treated with varying degrees of credibility by various authors. Meanwhile, the identity of Quintus Curtius Rufus, historian, is maintained separately.
Flodoard of Reims was a Frankish chronicler and priest of the cathedral church of Reims in the West Frankish kingdom during the decades following the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire. His historical writings are major sources for the history of Western Europe, especially France, in the early and mid-tenth century.
Ancient Greek literature is literature written in the Ancient Greek language from the earliest texts until the time of the Byzantine Empire. The earliest surviving works of ancient Greek literature, dating back to the early Archaic period, are the two epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, set in an idealized archaic past today identified as having some relation to the Mycenaean era. These two epics, along with the Homeric Hymns and the two poems of Hesiod, the Theogony and Works and Days, constituted the major foundations of the Greek literary tradition that would continue into the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods.
Anglo-Norman literature is literature composed in the Anglo-Norman language and developed during the period of 1066–1204, as the Duchy of Normandy and the Kingdom of England were united in the Anglo-Norman realm.
Timon of Phlius was an Ancient Greek philosopher from the Hellenistic period, who was the student of Pyrrho. Unlike Pyrrho, who wrote nothing, Timon wrote satirical philosophical poetry called Silloi (Σίλλοι) as well as a number of prose writings. These have been lost, but the fragments quoted in later authors allow a rough outline of his philosophy to be reconstructed.
Waltharius is a Latin epic poem founded on German popular tradition relating the exploits of the Visigothic hero Walter of Aquitaine. While its subject matter is taken from early medieval Germanic legend, the epic stands firmly in the Latin literary tradition in terms of its form and the stylistic devices used. Thus, its 1456 verses are written in dactylic hexameter and the poem includes copious references to various Latin epics of antiquity, especially Vergil's Aeneid.
William the Breton, French chronicler and poet, was a contemporary and dependent of French king Philip Augustus for whom he served in diplomatic missions and for whom he wrote a Latin prose chronicle and a Latin epic poem.
The Alexander Romance is an account of the life and exploits of Alexander the Great. Although constructed around a historical core, the romance is mostly fictional. It was widely copied and translated, accruing various legends and fantastical elements at different stages. The original version was composed in Ancient Greek some time before 338 CE, when a Latin translation was made, although the exact date is unknown. Several late manuscripts attribute the work to Alexander's court historian Callisthenes, but Callisthenes died before Alexander and therefore could not have written a full account of his life. The unknown author is still sometimes known as Pseudo-Callisthenes.
Samuel Chappuzeau was a French scholar, author, poet and playwright whose best-known work today is Le Théâtre François, a description of French Theatre in the seventeenth century.
The Alexandreis is a medieval Latin epic poem by Walter of Châtillon, a 12th-century French writer and theologian. It gives an account of the life of Alexander the Great, based on Quintus Curtius Rufus' Historia Alexandri Magni. The poem was popular and influential in Walter's own times: according to Henry of Ghent, it was more popular than Virgil's Aeneid in thirteenth-century schools. Translations were made into Old Spanish, Middle Dutch into Old Norse as the Alexanderssaga; Matthew of Vendôme and Alan of Lille borrowed from it and Henry of Settimello imitated it, but it is now seldom read. One line is sometimes quoted:
The Libro de Alexandre is a medieval Spanish epic poem about Alexander the Great written between 1178 and c. 1250 in the mester de clerecía. It is largely based on the Alexandreis of Walter of Châtillon, but also contains many fantastical elements common to the Alexander romance. It consists of 2,675 stanzas of cuaderna vía and 10,700 lines.
Being between Scylla and Charybdis is an idiom deriving from Greek mythology, which has been associated with the proverbial advice "to choose the lesser of two evils". Several other idioms, such as "on the horns of a dilemma", "between the devil and the deep blue sea", and "between a rock and a hard place" express similar meanings. The mythical situation also developed a proverbial use in which seeking to choose between equally dangerous extremes is seen as leading inevitably to disaster.
Reginald of Canterbury was a medieval French writer and Benedictine monk who lived and wrote in England in the very early part of the 12th century. He was the author of a number of Latin poems, including an epic entitled Malchus, which still survives.
The Gesta Regum Britanniae is a Latin epic written at some time between 1235 and 1254, and attributed to a Breton monk, William of Rennes.
William of Rennes, OP was a French friar in the Dominican Order, was a poet, theologian and expert on canon law. William was a Breton born in Thorigné in the thirteenth century.
The Histories of Alexander the Great is the only surviving extant Latin biography of Alexander the Great. It was written by the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus in the 1st-century AD, but the earliest surviving manuscript comes from the 9th century.
Alexanders saga is an Old Norse translation of Alexandreis, an epic Latin poem about the life of Alexander the Great written by Walter of Châtillon, which was itself based on Quintus Curtius Rufus's Historia Alexandri Magni. It is attributed in manuscripts of the saga to Brandr Jónsson, bishop of Skálholt who is also said to have been responsible for authoring Gyðinga saga. Kirsten Wolf has commented on the saga's literary qualities thus: "Alexanders saga [...] has stirred the admiration of scholars and writers for centuries because of its exceptionally imaginative use of the resources of language and its engaging narrative style."
