Varcare i confini? Palinsesti didascalici nel terzo libro delle Elegie di Properzio

Although it is objectively difficult to prepare a study on the relation- ships between Propertius’s elegies and the didactic poetry, a help- ful hint for the interpretation is given by the elegy 3, 5, in which the Umbrian poet expresses the desire to study, in his old age, the natu- ral phenomena, extending his study until the interpretation of the underworld. Indeed, in 13th and 22nd elegy of the 3rd book, which is the most experimental of the collection, Propertius will measure against the didactic poems written by Lucretius and Virgil, not cross- ing the boundaries of the genre of the elegy, but occasionally adopt- ing and re-elaborating in a original and explicit way, some elements from the 5th book of the De rerum natura and from the 2nd book of the Georgics.