Johannes de Hauvilla, Architrenius
By: translated and edited by Winthrop Wetherbee.
Contributors: Wetherbee, Winthrop, 1938-
Series: Cambridge medieval classics ;; 3
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Cambridge [England]; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 276
Subjects: Verse satire, Latin (Medieval and modern) -- Translations into English.
Other titles: Architrenius
Description: The Architrenius is a vivacious and influential Latin satirical poem in nine books dating from 1184. It describes the journey of a young man (the "Arch-Weeper") on the threshold of maturity, confronting the ills of the church, the court, and the schools of late twelfth-century Europe. Dramatizing the human tendency towards vice and the vanity of worldly things, the poem is full of social commentary and flights of brilliant description.

There are characteristic scenes in which a desire that combines prurience with frank sexuality is set against a quasi-religious idealism. The directness with which the poem engages social and psychological problems anticipates the work of the great vernacular writers Boccaccio and Chaucer. Winthrop Wetherbee's prose translation is presented alongside the original Latin, and augmented by an introduction and extensive notes.
Notes: English and Latin.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 269-271) and index.