iuvenilia

Iuvenilia is a Latin term meaning youthful things or juvenile writings. It derives from iuvenilis, meaning "of a youth," and is commonly used in classical Latin to designate early or youthful works by a poet or writer. The phrase often appears as a title or label in manuscript and editorial contexts, grouping poems, essays, or other pieces believed to be written in the author’s youth rather than in his mature period.

Historically, iuvenilia is encountered in critical discussions of ancient authors, where scholars refer to a subset of an author's early verse or prose as his Iuvenilia. The best-known example is the collection associated with the Roman poet Ovid, cited as Ovid's Iuvenilia, which is viewed as an early display of his poetic talent and as a source for understanding his development. Other authors' youthful writings are sometimes labeled iuvenilia in modern editions or scholarly catalogs.

Because such corpora are often fragmentary, of questionable authorship, or dispersed across manuscripts, editions vary and the term remains a descriptive label rather than a fixed, canonical work. In modern scholarship, Iuvenilia is sometimes used to discuss the broader phenomenon of juvenilia—the early works of writers across periods and languages.