Anser (poet)

Anser was a Roman elegiac poet who flourished during the 1st century BCE, possibly slightly before or during the time of Catullus. Very little is known about his life. His surviving works are fragmentary, consisting of only a handful of lines quoted by later authors. He is principally known for writing about love, and is considered by some scholars to have been a member of the poetae novi or "new poets", a group of Roman poets who broke away from traditional epic poetry and embraced a more personal and innovative style, including shorter, more polished verse focused on personal experience and emotion. While he was clearly known and read in antiquity, his reputation appears to have suffered somewhat over time, with some later authors criticizing his style as being less polished or sophisticated than other elegists like Tibullus or Propertius. Despite the limited amount of surviving material, Anser remains a figure of interest for those studying Roman elegiac poetry and the development of Roman literary style.