The Ruin Ubi Sunt - Ubi Sunt in The Ruin PDF

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Ubi Sunt in The Ruin...

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Ubi sunt (literally "where are... [they]") is a phrase taken from the Latin Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt? , meaning "Where are those who were before us?"

The Speaker describes the ruins/architecture of an ancient town, thought now to be Bath because of the bath houses.

Medievalists.net - “The Past Dreaming of the Past” This type of reflection on the mightiest of human endeavours coming to dust is a common one in the literature and art of the Middle Ages, a time in which people had a near constant focus on the afterlife, thanks to the teachings of the church. There are other medieval works that fall under the category of “Ubi Sunt” (“Where Are”) poems that reflect on the transient nature of human beings in the face of the eternal. But unlike Ubi sunt qui ante noe fuerunt?, The Ruin is missing some of its words, stealing the focus away from the Christian moral which may have accompanied it at one time, and leaving the focus on the speaker’s vivid portrait of what the ruin might have been like in its glory days:

As Liuzza remarks in his footnote, “The poem, appropriately, trails off into incoherent decay.”...