01644--Augustan Age

Augustan Age is the greatest period of Roman literature, adorned by the poets Virgil, Ovid, Horace, and Propertius. It is named after the reign (27 BCE-14 CE) of the emperor Augustus, but many literary historians prefer to date the literary period from the death of Julius Caesar in 44 CE, thus including the early works of Virgil and Horace. In English literary history, the term is usually applied to the period from the accession of Queen Anne (1702) to the deaths of Pope and Swift (1744-5), although John Diyden, whose major translation of Virgil's works appeared in 1697, may also be regarded as part of the English phenomenon known as Augustanism. The Augustans, led by Pope and Swift, wrote in conscious emulation of the Romans, adopted their literary forms (notably the epistle and the satire), and aimed to create a similarly sophisticated urban literary milieu: a characteristic preference in Augustan literature, encouraged by the periodicals of Addison and Steele.