LATER WRITERS
Competent but minor poets populated Rome in its last cen-
turies. Prose faired somewhat better. Th e Meditations of the
emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–180 c.e.), published aft er
Marcus’s death, collects the emperor’s private musings about
life and the gods while pondering the role of Stoicism in pub-
lic and private life. Marcus’s contemporary Lucius Apuleius
(ca. 124–ca. 170 c.e.) wrote the novel Metamorphoses, also
known as the Aureus asinus (Th e Golden Ass), in which the
protagonist Lucius’s mishandling of magic turns him into an
ass. Before returning to human form, Lucius has a series of
humorous and lewd adventures.
Beginning in the fourth century, numerous important
Christian writers appeared and dominated Roman writing.
Aurelius Ambrosius (ca. 340–397 c.e.), later Saint Ambrose,
wrote many hymns, sermons, letters, and treatises defending
Christianity against paganism. Eusebius Hieronymous (ca.
347–420 c.e.), or Saint Jerome, wrote biblical commentaries
and biographies of Christian writers; his translation of the
Bible became the standard Latin text. Aurelius Augustinus
(54–430 c.e.), or Saint Augustine, was a prolifi c writer. His
most famous work is his Confessions (ca. 397–400 c.e.), an
examination of his life that contains a vivid and forceful ac-
count of his conversion to Christianity.
THE AMERICAS
BY ALESSIA FRASSANI
Writing and recording knowledge in Native America was
limited, and no texts have survived from the pre-Columbian
period. Archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists who
study ancient indigenous cultures agree that Native Ameri-
can literary traditions were essentially oral. In ancient times
tools were used to support memorization of diff erent types
of texts, from tribute accounts to religious chants. Th ese
tools only partly recorded the spoken word and were meant
to give clues for recitation, which was largely improvised. Al-
t hough t his may seem unusua l to modern readers used to t he
support of the printed word for preserving and transmitting
information, the human mind has the ability to memorize
long texts provided they have a rhythmic, repetitive, and re-
dundant formal structure. People can be specially trained
from a young age to become profi cient in the art of memory.
Schools and tutoring provide the necessary intellectual en-
vironment to stimulate this activity, which preserves and
creates at the same time. It aims at preserving a preexisting
body of literature while the performers are free and even ex-
pected to elaborate further during the actual performance.
All this was the case with Native American poetry, which
historians have been forced to study by examining historical
and contemporary cultures from the 16th century onward
in order to draw inferences about the content and form of
earlier literature.
Th e single most important element of Amerindian poet-
ics is parallelism. Two verses are coupled by a tight repetition
of the syntactic structure (that is, the structure of the sentence
and its grammar), with only a slight variation in the wording.
Th is gives the verse its basic rhythm, in a way comparable
to the rhyme and metric systems of Western literature. Th e
elementary two-verse unit can be either introduced or con-
cluded by a third line with a diff erent structure and word-
ing from the other two verses. Th is additional feature creates
variations in pitch and stress and enables the performers to
pause before starting again with a new sequence of parallel
verses. A good example can be found in the creation account
contained in the ancient Mayan Popol Vuh, which includes
the lines: “now it still ripples / now it still murmurs / ripples,
it still sighs / it still hums / and it is empty / under the sky.”
Performers and the rhythms of their delivery over a fi xed nar-
ration and story are ultimately the most remarkable features
of Amerindian literature.
Archaeological remains that bear traces of what may
have been a literary tradition in the Americas in the early
period include carvings and paintings meant for public
display. Th e context points to the function of some literary
production and performance as a propaganda tool. Archae-
ologists and anthropologists tend to view the rise of com-
plex mythology in the early ancient Americas as tied to the
emergence of social complexity and the establishment of
an elite class that employed literature to justify claims to
power. Members of the ruling class impersonated literary
and legendary fi gures during ceremonies and were actively
involved in creating a perception of rulership’s durability
and legitimacy based on the mythological quality of the sto-
ries narrated. In other cases agricultural cycles and crops
were the main theme, expressing an obvious concern for
community sustenance and well-being. Paintings decorated
rooms and plazas where fertility rituals took place, and the
decoration ser ved as a backdrop for ceremonies ta k ing place
in them.
In Mesoamerica the period of pre-Columbian history
f rom 4 0 0 b.c.e. to 15 0 c.e. i s k now n a s L ate P re c la s sic or For-
mative. Both terms defi ne an early stage of Mesoamerican
history in relation to later, and better-known, sociopolitical
developments. Anthropologists believe that during this pe-
riod states emerged, along with intensive agriculture. From
relatively small and simple societies, cities and even empires
came to dominate the Mesoamerican political arena. In the
Maya area, including modern southern Mexico, Guatemala,
Belize, and Honduras, the importance of ritual reenactment
and public sacrifi ce of rulers during ceremonial occasions
is well known. Th e continuation of political rulership, es-
pecially at the critical moments of dynastic succession, was
metaphorically tied to the constant renewal of the maize-
planting cycle. At the base of this ideology was the Popol
Vuh, an epic tradition known only from a text written in
the 16th century but widely represented in pre-Columbianliterature: The Americas 665