Neo-Latin Poetry, 1500–1700

This chapter discusses Latin poetry of the period 1500–1700, with a particular focus on the British Latin verse of this period, as well as authors from elsewhere who had an international reputation. Since the Latin literature of the Renaissance is conventionally considered to begin in Italy in the mid-fourteenth century with Petrarch, and the Italian Latin literature of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was strongly influential on the rest of Europe throughout the early modern period, this chapter also gives some account of key figures from that earlier period. The chapter discusses the various contexts for Latin verse composition in the period, the most significant forms and genres (including lyric, elegy, epigram, and epyllion), key British Latin authors (including Campion, Herbert, Milton, and Cowley), the relationship to English literature, modes of publication and the directions of future research.