Georgics - Couverture rigide

Virgil

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0198144458 ISBN 13 : 9780198144458

Editeur : Clarendon Press, 1990

Synopsis

Virgil's Georgics, considered to be one of the great poems of Western literature, is ostensibly a didactic poem on agriculture. Challenging this idea, the late Sir Roger Mynors argues that the poem's true subject is humanity and its place in nature and society. The poem is also a landmark in the use of the natural world as material for literature and of special interest because the poet draws not only on his own experience but also on his wide reading of Greek poetry. This commentary examines Virgil's meaning and choice of expression to provide a fuller understanding of the poetry.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

This volume and its companion volume devoted to the second half of the poem provide a detailed commentary, with text, on the whole of Virgil's Georgics. Professor Thomas describes this work as 'perhaps the most difficult, certainly the most controversial, poem in Roman literature'. He presents the Georgics as the finished poem of Virgil's mature years, approaching it not merely as a part of the tradition of didactic poetry, but rather as a work which confronts, behind its generic appearance, issues not essentially different from those which inform the Eclogues and Aeneid. His introduction and Commentary argue that Virgil's agricultural world, with its successes, failures and ultimate limitations, represents the arena for man's struggle with the realities of existence. Professor Thomas pays particular attention to Virgil's allusion to and reshaping of prior Greek and Latin poetry. The Introduction also covers stylistic, metrical and structural questions. A subject index and indexes of important Greek and Latin words conclude each volume. This edition is aimed primarily at students at university and in the upper forms of schools, but the range of its scholarship means that it will be valuable to all classical scholars. The Introduction contains material for non-classicists interested in Latin literature.

Biographie de l'auteur

Eminent Roman poet, Virgil is famous for his incomparable epic Aeneid which has greatly influenced literature through the ages. Son of an affluent landowner, Virgil was sent to Milan, Rome and Naples to study rhetoric, mathematics, and medicine. He became one of the ''Alexandrians" - a group of poets influenced by Greek bards of the 3rd century. His early works include the poetic collection Bucolica (37 B. C.; 10 books), and the informative Georgics (29 B. C.; 4 books). After the Battle of Actium in 31 B. C. Virgil was assigned by the victorious emperor Augustus to write about his rule. This resulted in his magnum opus Aeneid on which he worked from 30 to 19 B. C. Spread over 12 books; it vividly captures the splendour of the Roman Empire and made Virgil a legend.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Clarendon Press
• Date d'édition: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0198144458
• ISBN 13: 9780198144458
• Reliure: Relié
• Langue: anglais
• Nombre de pages: 436