poetry and symbolic communication -- The criticism of ancient literature -- Poetic landscape and the green world -- The Greek poetic imagination -- Tragic wisdom: Aeschylus and Sophocles -- Symbolism in the Roman poets -- Focal symbols in Horace's poetry -- Horace and his friends: Brundisium -- Life a dream: the poetry of Petronius -- Juvenal: the critic with a smirk -- Dialogue of the poet and his world.