Tendances esthétiques de la poésie latine tardive (325-470)

Impregnated with the triumphalism of the reigns of Constantine and Theodosius and persuaded, also after 410, of the eternity of Rome (Roma aeterna), of the triumph of light over darkness, the late Latin poetry is characterised by the search for a point of balance between its will to adopt the classical inheritance (rhetorical, literary and ideological neo-classicism) and the expression of its Alexandrian taste (mixture of poetic genres and tones; miniaturization and fragmented composition; predisposition towards a world of metamorphosis, change and illusion; taste for spectacle and the spectacular; sophistication and art of the enigma). In general, there is no fundamental difference in aesthetic attitude between pagan and Christian poets (contra R. Herzog); every poet, in his own way, strove for a balance between neo-classicism and neo-alexandrianism within the triumphal expression of contemporary ideology. But, for the true Christian, poetic activity became a spiritual act, a form of divine worship, and the poem itself an offering to God; he accepted the poetic tradition in order to convert it and devote it to his spiritual purpose.