To be honest, I always thought the "ubi sunt" theme started somewhere in
mid-to-late antiquity with the _planctus_ genre and enjoyed a considerable
florescence in nice dreary Anglo-Saxon poems such as "The Wanderer." I'm
sure there's someone on this list who knows far more about the topic than I
do, but I know there's a fairly famous article on "The Wanderer" as _planctus_.
It caused me to reevaluate a certain passage in Tolkien's _Two Towers_ (which
is still my favorite "ubi sunt" passage) partway through my undergraduate
career. ;)
There's also the equally ancient -- and obviously related -- Jewish theme of
the "decline of the generations," which pops up all over the place in medieval
Jewish literature.
Wendy Love Anderson http://home.uchicago.edu/~wlanders
The Divinity School [log in to unmask]
The University of Chicago (773)924-0553
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