Resumen de Ausonius' elegiac wife: Epigram 20 and the traditions of latin love poetry
Ausonius's Epigram 20, addressed to his wife, opens with a declaration of allegiance to the Latin erotic tradition (uxor, vivamus recalls the opening of Catullus 5 (vivamus, mea Lesbia), and goes on to incorporate verbal and thematic reminiscences from love elegy. At the same time, it departs radically from the most basic premise of that tradition, since the addressee of a Latin amatory poem is presumptively not the speaker's own spouse. Thus, within its brief compass, the poem succeeds in reorienting the language of Latin amatory poetry by appropriating its specially coded vocabulary for a matrimonial context.
