Faces of Loneliness in Propertius 1.18

Abstract

In Propertius’ Elegy 1.18, the speaker arrives at an empty, desolate grove so that he may complain loud about being an abandoned lover in solitude. The work is positioned in the mainstream of the Augustan love elegy, but apart from elegiac concepts, it contains numerous topoi and intertextual references to the tradition of bucolic poetry. This article discusses the functioning of the motif of loneliness, which in 1.18 combines various elements that make up the image of the depicted world and enables the selection and modification of interpretative clues.