literature: The Americas LATER WRITERS Competent but minor poets populated Rome in its last centuries Prose faired somewhat better The Meditations of the emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–180 c.e.), published after Marcus’s death, collects the emperor’s private musings about life and the gods while pondering the role of Stoicism in public and private life Marcus’s contemporary Lucius Apuleius (ca 124–ca 170 c.e.) wrote the novel Metamorphoses, also known as the Aureus asinus (The Golden Ass), in which the protagonist Lucius’s mishandling of magic turns him into an ass Before returning to human form, Lucius has a series of humorous and lewd adventures Beginning in the fourth century, numerous important Christian writers appeared and dominated Roman writing Aurelius Ambrosius (ca 340–397 c.e.), later Saint Ambrose, wrote many hymns, sermons, letters, and treatises defending Christianity against paganism Eusebius Hieronymous (ca 347–420 c.e.), or Saint Jerome, wrote biblical commentaries and biographies of Christian writers; his translation of the Bible became the standard Latin text Aurelius Augustinus (54–430 c.e.), or Saint Augustine, was a prolific writer His most famous work is his Confessions (ca 397–400 c.e.), an examination of his life that contains a vivid and forceful account of his conversion to Christianity THE AMERICAS BY ALESSIA FRASSANI Writing and recording knowledge in Native America was limited, and no texts have survived from the pre-Columbian period Archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists who study ancient indigenous cultures agree that Native American literary traditions were essentially oral In ancient times tools were used to support memorization of different types of texts, from tribute accounts to religious chants These tools only partly recorded the spoken word and were meant to give clues for recitation, which was largely improvised Although this may seem unusual to modern readers used to the support of the printed word for preserving and transmitting information, the human mind has the ability to memorize long texts provided they have a rhythmic, repetitive, and redundant formal structure People can be specially trained from a young age to become proficient in the art of memory Schools and tutoring provide the necessary intellectual environment to stimulate this activity, which preserves and creates at the same time It aims at preserving a preexisting body of literature while the performers are free and even expected to elaborate further during the actual performance All this was the case with Native American poetry, which historians have been forced to study by examining historical and contemporary cultures from the 16th century onward in order to draw inferences about the content and form of earlier literature 665 The single most important element of Amerindian poetics is parallelism Two verses are coupled by a tight repetition of the syntactic structure (that is, the structure of the sentence and its grammar), with only a slight variation in the wording This gives the verse its basic rhythm, in a way comparable to the rhyme and metric systems of Western literature The elementary two-verse unit can be either introduced or concluded by a third line with a different structure and wording from the other two verses This additional feature creates variations in pitch and stress and enables the performers to pause before starting again with a new sequence of parallel verses A good example can be found in the creation account contained in the ancient Mayan Popol Vuh, which includes the lines: “now it still ripples / now it still murmurs / ripples, it still sighs / it still hums / and it is empty / under the sky.” Performers and the rhythms of their delivery over a fi xed narration and story are ultimately the most remarkable features of Amerindian literature Archaeological remains that bear traces of what may have been a literary tradition in the Americas in the early period include carvings and paintings meant for public display The context points to the function of some literary production and performance as a propaganda tool Archaeologists and anthropologists tend to view the rise of complex mythology in the early ancient Americas as tied to the emergence of social complexity and the establishment of an elite class that employed literature to justify claims to power Members of the ruling class impersonated literary and legendary figures during ceremonies and were actively involved in creating a perception of rulership’s durability and legitimacy based on the mythological quality of the stories narrated In other cases agricultural cycles and crops were the main theme, expressing an obvious concern for community sustenance and well-being Paintings decorated rooms and plazas where fertility rituals took place, and the decoration served as a backdrop for ceremonies taking place in them In Mesoamerica the period of pre-Columbian history from 400 b.c.e to 150 c.e is known as Late Preclassic or Formative Both terms defi ne an early stage of Mesoamerican history in relation to later, and better-known, sociopolitical developments Anthropologists believe that during this period states emerged, along with intensive agriculture From relatively small and simple societies, cities and even empires came to dominate the Mesoamerican political arena In the Maya area, including modern southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras, the importance of ritual reenactment and public sacrifice of rulers during ceremonial occasions is well known The continuation of political rulership, especially at the critical moments of dynastic succession, was metaphorically tied to the constant renewal of the maizeplanting cycle At the base of this ideology was the Popol Vuh, an epic tradition known only from a text written in the 16th century but widely represented in pre-Columbian