Use of the generic second-person in Latin – a reflection based on a fragment of Tomé Correia’s De Elegia

Abstract

First published in the 1570s and republished in 1590 in Bologna, the De elegia by Tomé Correia (1536-1595), the first significant treatise devoted to the elegiac genre, not infrequently employs constructions of the so-called generic second-person. Aimed at Latin didactics, the present article undertakes an exploration of a passage that clearly exemplifies this grammatical usage, while also engaging with the rhetorical-poetic concept of decorum within the scope of literary genology. In line with common practice, a reflexive impersonal construction is proposed for rendering the generic second-person.