Late antique poetry transformed inherited Greek and Roman forms under the influence of Christianity, Judaism, new imperial structures, and changing educational traditions. Biblical paraphrase, hymnody, saints' lives, theological epics, funerary verse, and court poetry flourished beside classical imitation. Writers such as Prudentius, Ausonius, Nonnus, and Venantius Fortunatus recast myth, scripture, and civic identity, helping establish literary patterns later associated with medieval Europe.

Late Antiquity, roughly from the third through seventh centuries, was a period of cultural transition rather than a sudden break with the classical past. Pagan forms such as epic, hymn, and rhetoric continued while Christian poets adapted them to biblical subjects, theology, and devotional practice. Writers including Prudentius, Ausonius, and Augustine show how classical meters, symbolism, and education could be redirected toward Christian meanings and new ideas about time, sin, salvation, and identity.