SOURCE: "The Unity of Certain Elegies of Propertius," The American Journal of Philology, Vol. LV, 1934, pp. 62-66.

In the following essay, Godolphin discusses Propertius's subjective dramatic monologues, suggesting that they have been overlooked by critics.

Several elegies of Propertius have suffered from harsh treatment at the hands of the editors, who have divided them into A's, B's, and C's¹ often without making sufficient effort to understand the author's technique where he departs from the usual types. The narrative elegy and what may be called the elegy of mood certainly occur most frequently. In the latter a given theme or topic is developed with no change in the underlying circumstances, or at least no external change corresponding to the poet's variation of mood in the course of the elegy. There is, however, a third type in which incidents or emotions are presented dramatically and the elegy is treated as...