Writings
It was by his tragedies that Secundus obtained the most celebrity. They are spoken of in the highest terms by Tacitus, Quintilian, and the younger Plinius, and were read even in a much later age, as one of them is quoted by the grammarian Charisius. These tragedies were first put on the stage in the time of Claudius. Quintilian asserts that he was far superior to any writer of tragedies he had known, and Tacitus expresses a high opinion of his literary abilities.
Secundus devoted much attention to the niceties of grammar and style, on which he was recognized as an authority. His subject matter was Greek, with one known exception, a praetexta called Aeneas. Tragedians in the Julio-Claudian and Flavian periods typically were men of relatively high social status, and their works often expressed their political views under an insufficient veil of fiction. Only a few lines of his work remain, some of which belong to Aeneas.
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Famous quotes containing the word writings:
“An able reader often discovers in other people’s writings perfections beyond those that the author put in or perceived, and lends them richer meanings and aspects.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“It has come to be practically a sort of rule in literature, that a man, having once shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled thenceforth to steal from the writings of others at discretion. Thought is the property of him who can entertain it; and of him who can adequately place it. A certain awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts; but, as soon as we have learned what to do with them, they become our own.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Even in my own writings I cannot always recover the meaning of my former ideas; I know not what I meant to say, and often get into a regular heat, correcting and putting a new sense into it, having lost the first and better one. I do nothing but come and go. My judgement does not always forge straight ahead; it strays and wanders.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)