Primus aut uetus? Novedad y arcaísmo en la poética enniana

Abstract

Ennius is well known as the "foundational father". Later authors found in his person a referent: our poet lays the foundation in his plays for the values that will shape Roman imaginary for centuries; he builts an epic and mythical Roman past and leads it to a "literary" category. Nevertheless, Ennius, who started the tradition these authors will consolidate, is frequently presented as an "archaic poet". This way of denominating him hides several opinions, fram praise and critique to compliance and contempt. We should not forget, anyway, that his archaism is a later construction which usually does not allow us to understand the way his coetaneous perceived his art. Ennius, studied fram his own context of praduction, is an innovating poet, conscious of his place in tradition and of the break his proposal produces on the previous literary background