Entertainment / Literature / Ubi Sunt Motif: A literary motif dealing with the transience of life. The name comes from a longer Latin phrase, 'Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerent?' [Where are those who were before us?], a phrase that begins several medieval poems in Latin. The phrase evokes the transience of life, youth, beauty, and human endeavor. It is a particularly common motif in the ballades. A particularly memorable example comes from medieval French, where Francois Villon repeatedly asks in 'The Ballade of Dead Ladies,' 'Ou sont les nieges d'antan?' ['Where are the snows of yesteryear?']. Many Anglo-Saxon poems such as 'The Ruin' and 'The Wanderer' also deal with this theme. Although the motif is similar to the Roman carpe diem motif in its emphasis on transitory existence, the medieval ubi sunt motif usually does not call on the reader to embrace this world's pleasures before the end comes, but instead grimly or sorrowfully urges the reader to prepare spiritually for the afterlife. (Latin, 'Where are....?')
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Motif Verb Synonyms: theme, idea, topic, subject, concept, leitmotif, pattern, figure, refrain, device, ornament, decoration, element, convention
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