"I do not scruple to prefer Statius to Virgil; his images are strongly conceived, and clearly painted, and the force of his language, while it makes the reader feel, proves that the author felt himself."
— Statius

January 1, 1970

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Epic poetsPoets from RomePeople from Naples
Original Language: English

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Against this, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote: "The proper petulance of levelism in a youth of two-and-twenty. I will venture to assert Southey had never read, or more than merely looked through, Statius, or Virgil either, except in school lessons." As reported in John Brown's Spare Hours, Vol. II (1861), p. 357