This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. Festivals feature prominently in Latin literature, even in works that are not explicitly dedicated to festive days like Ovid's Fasti. Festivals in Latin Literature explores the role of festivals in elegiac, lyric, and epic poetry, as well as historiography. In all of these, festivals play a more pervasive role than has so far been realised. Tibullus' elegiac oeuvre rests on an interplay b...

Greek and Roman stories of origin, or aetia, provide a fascinating window onto ancient conceptions of time. Aetia pervade ancient literature at all its stages, and connect the past with the present by telling us which aspects of the past survive "even now" or "ever since then". Yet, while the standard aetiological formulae remain surprisingly stable over time, the understanding of time that lies behind stories of origin undergoes profound changes. By studying a broad range of texts and by ...

The warm-hearted, humorous and at the same time exciting children's story "Kalle at the bird house" takes little people into the magical, wintry surroundings of an old garden. A bird house is the central meeting point for the animals, who gather there to eat. Here they experience adventures together, but also have to face challenges, because the hunting instinct lures the cats Trine and Minke into the garden. The main character, Kalle, a wood pigeon, was driven to become "the plucked one",...