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Conclusion

Yasmin Annabel Haskell

in Loyola's Bees: Ideology and Industry in Jesuit Latin Didactic Poetry

National loyalties and literary tastes generally compete with institutional and ideological alliances, as was the case of the Jesuits, where there was an unspoken conflict of taste between the ... More

National loyalties and literary tastes generally compete with institutional and ideological alliances, as was the case of the Jesuits, where there was an unspoken conflict of taste between the classicism and patriotism of Rapin and the mannerisms of his Neopolitan contemporaries. Although Neopolitan Jesuits were aware of the existence of a Rapinian model, they were more inclined to imitate local, non-Jesuit, Latin authors. As with the literary terms, the didactic poems of Jesuits also exhibit diverse aims as various as their geographical and chronological contexts. Although their poems were dominated by individual aims and intentions, Jesuit didactic poetry nevertheless exhibited uniform lineament. Most Jesuit didactic poems were tailored after Virgil's Georgics and the Virgilian form. There were also various mechanisms of internal imitation wherein a group of poems share thematic preoccupations and stylistic idiosyncrasies. Jesuit didactic poetry is also characterized by an emphasis on experience and usefulness, on orderliness, on difficulty embraced and surmounted, and on efforts divinely ordained and rewarded.Less

Munera uestra cano: The Poet, the Gods, and the Thematic Unity of Georgics 1

Damien Nelis

in Ancient Historiography and its Contexts: Studies in Honour of A. J. Woodman

This chapter offers a study of some aspects of the structure of the first book of Vergil's Georgics. It attempts to explain the book's thematic coherence by looking at the ways in which the poet ... More

This chapter offers a study of some aspects of the structure of the first book of Vergil's Georgics. It attempts to explain the book's thematic coherence by looking at the ways in which the poet relates his description of the life and work of the Italian farmer to the movement of the solar year, to Roman history, and to contemporary politics. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which Vergil reacts to his predecessors in the didactic genre and to the ways in which he handles the themes of religion and knowledge and the role of the new divinity he refers to by the name ‘Caesar’. Study of the poem's intertextuality helps to illustrate his engagement with contemporary politics, civil strife and the Roman revolution.Less

Scilicet et tempus ueniet…: Vergil, Georgics 1. 463–514 (1974)

R.O.A.M. Lyne

in R. O. A. M. Lyne: Collected Papers on Latin Poetry

This is another commentary-style close reading, this time of a key passage of Virgil, which brings out much significant detail and its symbolic ideological value and political function.

Introduction to C. Day Lewis's Translation of Vergil's Eclogues and Georgics (1983)

R.O.A.M. Lyne

in R. O. A. M. Lyne: Collected Papers on Latin Poetry

This paper is a stimulating account of the alienation effect apparently achieved by topographical dislocation in the Eclogues, and of the political symbolism of agriculture in the Georgics.

Intra‐Epic Debate: Vergil's Georgics

S.J. Harrison

in Generic Enrichment in Vergil and Horace

Clearly transitional between the Eclogues and the Aeneid, this poem shows generic strain in its second half, especially in the proem to Book 3 with its anticipation of martial epic, and in the ... More

Clearly transitional between the Eclogues and the Aeneid, this poem shows generic strain in its second half, especially in the proem to Book 3 with its anticipation of martial epic, and in the Aristaeus section at the end of Book 4, where the interplay of questions of literary form and political commitment is brilliantly explored (Homeric, neoteric, Hesiodic, Hellenistic).Less

Structuring Instruction: Didactic Poetry and Didactic Prose *

G. O. Hutchinson

in Talking Books: Readings in Hellenistic and Roman Books of Poetry

Latin didactic poems commonly have several books, unlike Hellenistic didactic poems. The details of beginning and ending show a significant relation with the books of Hellenistic and Republican prose ... More

Latin didactic poems commonly have several books, unlike Hellenistic didactic poems. The details of beginning and ending show a significant relation with the books of Hellenistic and Republican prose treatises: Latin didactic does not simply transmute prose but evokes its intellectual structuring and division. Lucretius, Virgil's Georgics, Ovid's Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris, and Manilius are looked at in turn; there are implications for Ovid's design. The final myth of Georgics 4 is related to Cicero, De Re Publica; antithetical poetic books are related to antithetical books of Latin prose. Clarity and brevity are goals in Lucretius and in prose. Didactic prose as well as poetry is seen to have stylistic range and structural enterprise: dialogue in Varro illustrates.Less

Monument and Festival in Vergil

Michèle Lowrie

in Writing, Performance, and Authority in Augustan Rome

Vergil consistently brings together the monument and festival at significant points in the Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid. Representative passages from each oeuvre show that Vergil moves his reader ... More

Vergil consistently brings together the monument and festival at significant points in the Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid. Representative passages from each oeuvre show that Vergil moves his reader through a simple dichotomy between writing and song to a more nuanced approach to the interrelation of these media. Ecphrasis of art works in the Aeneid in particular allows for the exploration of questions of fixity and perpetuity that other poets explore more directly through the language of writing. Although the ability to interpret the various media is an important aspect of imperial citizenship, Vergil does not offer a successful model for achieving this goal.Less

Vaga Signa: Orion and Sirius in Ovid's Fasti

Emma Gee

in Ovid's Fasti: Historical Readings at its Bimillennium

This chapter considers the intertextual relationship between Ovid’s didactic poem and Virgil’s Georgics, a relationship which provides a didactic subtext that unites the Robigalia, Orion, and Mars ... More

This chapter considers the intertextual relationship between Ovid’s didactic poem and Virgil’s Georgics, a relationship which provides a didactic subtext that unites the Robigalia, Orion, and Mars Ultor. The common features in the apparently dissimilar structure, content, and programme of the two passages help to shed light on the way in which misrepresentations of astronomical material function in the immediate context in the Fasti, and on the place of astronomy in the work as a whole.Less

Janet Lembke

Lorna Hardwick and James I. Porter

in Sibylline Sisters: Virgil's Presence in Contemporary Women's Writing

While Joyce Carol Oates uses Virgil to explore the dangers facing the United States from the divided social factions at the heart of the community, Janet Lembke's concern is to alert us to the ... More

While Joyce Carol Oates uses Virgil to explore the dangers facing the United States from the divided social factions at the heart of the community, Janet Lembke's concern is to alert us to the irreversible damage caused to the landscape by government policies that have been driven by material gain and have resulted in both dispossession and climate change. Lembke's decision to translate the Georgics for the 21st century demonstrates her belief that Virgil's treatise on farming can still offer us valuable lessons about the catastrophic consequences that are attendant upon greed and a criminal disregard of the need to respect the delicate equilibrium between human sustenance and nature's ecologies.Less

Aristaeus, Orpheus, and the Georgics: once again

Gian Biagio Conte and S. J. Harrison

in The Poetry of Pathos: Studies in Virgilian Epic

This chapter discusses Aristaeus, Orpheus, and the Georgics. Reacting favourably to Jasper Griffin's justly influential article on Georgics 4, it agrees that readers need an interpretation that can ... More

This chapter discusses Aristaeus, Orpheus, and the Georgics. Reacting favourably to Jasper Griffin's justly influential article on Georgics 4, it agrees that readers need an interpretation that can encompass the whole of the Georgics and show its essential unity. The chapter also reinforces the crucial original perception that Aristaeus is an extrapolation on the mythical level of the farmer of the Georgics and makes the equally convincing argument that the Aristaeus story consciously echoes the myths of Platonic dialogues in enacting on the mythical level and in final climactic position the essential message of the didactic work. Centrally important too is the analysis of the Alexandrian narrative technique of the Aristaeus-episode, arguing incontrovertibly that the juxtaposition of two structurally similar but crucially different stories is a key part of interpretation, just as it is in Catullus 64.Less

The Poet’s Choice: Vergil’s Georgics

KATHARINA VOLK

in The Poetics of Latin Didactic: Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, Manilius

This chapter examines Vergil's Georgics, a poem in four books on agriculture, considering the work specifically as a didactic poem. It has frequently been doubted that the Georgics is primarily ... More

This chapter examines Vergil's Georgics, a poem in four books on agriculture, considering the work specifically as a didactic poem. It has frequently been doubted that the Georgics is primarily didactic, given that large parts of the poem are dedicated to topics other than the teaching of agriculture. The chapter addresses this issue, examining in detail the interactions of the persona with his two addressees: the farmers and the poet's patron Maecenas. By reflecting at length on his poetic activity, including on types of poetry that he is not currently composing but might attempt in the future, the persona paints a portrait of himself as a poet in mid-career. This strategy of self-presentation has greatly influenced later readings of Vergil's career, according to which the Georgics, situated between the Eclogues and the Aeneid, presents the midpoint of the poet's output.Less

Introduction

Philip Thibodeau

in Playing the Farmer: Representations of Rural Life in Vergil's Georgics

This chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to evoke the interest of the Georgics' representations of farming and rural life per se. Doing so will require two efforts. The first is ... More

This chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to evoke the interest of the Georgics' representations of farming and rural life per se. Doing so will require two efforts. The first is a project of literary and historical reconstruction that will allow us to situate the Georgics within the discourse of agrarianism in ancient Rome. The second task of this book is to show how the poem innovates and departs from the conventions of agrarian discourse and practice. The chapter then provides an introduction to the poem and some scholarly approaches to it.Less

Agricolae

Philip Thibodeau

in Playing the Farmer: Representations of Rural Life in Vergil's Georgics

What kind of person counted as a farmer—an Agricola—for the Romans? To gain a purchase on Roman discourse about agricolae this chapter begins by addressing a series of topics, all of them economic in ... More

What kind of person counted as a farmer—an Agricola—for the Romans? To gain a purchase on Roman discourse about agricolae this chapter begins by addressing a series of topics, all of them economic in the ancient sense of the term. First, how were the duties of labor and management divided up among various persons on a Roman estate. Second, how in terms of operation did the estates owned by the rich and powerful differ from those of the poor. Third, how did the farmers familiar to Vergil's readers from ordinary life differ from the idealized concept of the Agricola. It concludes by examining some passages from the poem and considering the status of the poet and his audience; but the first goal is to answer St. Augustine's question: quid facit Agricola?Less

Playing the Farmer

Philip Thibodeau

in Playing the Farmer: Representations of Rural Life in Vergil's Georgics

The Georgics regularly treats its addressee as an agricola, and on occasion explicitly identifies him as such. To the extent then that the reader identifies with the addressee, the poem provides him ... More

The Georgics regularly treats its addressee as an agricola, and on occasion explicitly identifies him as such. To the extent then that the reader identifies with the addressee, the poem provides him or her with the imaginary experience of being a farmer. For the most part that experience did not correspond to anything in the daily routine of Vergil's ancient Roman readers. Accordingly, that experience is referred to as a fantasy, one in which the reader “plays the farmer.” That fantasy is the subject of this chapter. It focuses on economic fantasies, fictions in the poem's representations of such things as labor, management, and money on the farm.Less

Nobility in Rustication

Philip Thibodeau

in Playing the Farmer: Representations of Rural Life in Vergil's Georgics

This chapter attempts to bring to the fore representations of leisure (otium) and villa culture in the Georgics. Despite realistic elements, these also constitute a fantasy that can be usefully ... More

This chapter attempts to bring to the fore representations of leisure (otium) and villa culture in the Georgics. Despite realistic elements, these also constitute a fantasy that can be usefully analyzed in terms of its emphases and omissions, shaped by moral and aesthetic concerns. It first considers Vergil's use of prestige language—value terms like honor, Gloria, and dignitas, heavy in their social overtones—that are attached to elements of rural life. It then looks at the poem's habit of tracing the traditions of the countryside back to their origins in a mythological or heroic past, so that they acquire a dignified genealogy. It next analyzes the poem's representations of festivals within a rustic setting, in order to tie those images to aristocratic habits of euergestism and communal patronage. Finally, it takes a close look at the most extended and explicit account of rustication in the poem, the Laudes Ruris, “Praises of the Countryside” sequence at the end of book 2, observing how Vergil uses that passage to weave the aforementioned themes together.Less

A Protreptic to Agronomy

Philip Thibodeau

in Playing the Farmer: Representations of Rural Life in Vergil's Georgics

This chapter demonstrates how a number of aesthetic, rhetorical, and philosophical strands in the poem's representation of agriculture contribute to an end that is described as protreptic. Three ... More

This chapter demonstrates how a number of aesthetic, rhetorical, and philosophical strands in the poem's representation of agriculture contribute to an end that is described as protreptic. Three features of the poem are considered. The first is its selectivity, the Georgics' extreme compression and omission of topics other writers treat as indispensable. It is argued that what it loses in usefulness it gains in the curiosity it elicits regarding technical subjects. Next, the chapter returns to a theme from Chapter 3 and shows how in his aitia, or causes, Vergil creates a complex series of ties between agriculture and other more prestigious fields of knowledge, which elevate agronomy and make it seem like a true liberal art. The last section examines the poet's construction of thaumata, or marvels, in passages where he either explicitly or implicitly impels the reader to an experience of wonder at the subject. Vergil deploys wonders for various ends, but most often it is to make an intellectual response to his material seem necessary.Less

To Enchant Readers

Philip Thibodeau

in Playing the Farmer: Representations of Rural Life in Vergil's Georgics

This chapter returns one more time to Seneca's aper çu about the Georgics, this time to linger on its first clause: to enchant readers. It maps out the “psychagogy” of the Georgics, primarily but not ... More

This chapter returns one more time to Seneca's aper çu about the Georgics, this time to linger on its first clause: to enchant readers. It maps out the “psychagogy” of the Georgics, primarily but not exclusively by showing how Vergil represents and evokes the passions while talking about rustic things. His techniques for doing so can be studied by considering three fundamental aspects of the text. The first is its content: when the work is set against its sources, it is often possible to see Vergil gravitating toward material related to the passions, or adding content rich in pathos to that which lacks it. Second is its use of rhetoric: the language of the Georgics features a wide range of classic rhetorical figures, everything from anaphora to personification, which have the effect of amplifying its emotive force. Thirdly, there is the poem's narratology, which refers to the way the text attributes passions, not just to the various domestic and wild fauna it describes, but to the narrator and in some cases to the addressee, whose emotional reactions are prescribed by the text as if by a script.Less

The Reception of the Georgics in Early Imperial Rome

Philip Thibodeau

in Playing the Farmer: Representations of Rural Life in Vergil's Georgics

This chapter discusses the story of the Georgics' reception by readers of the early Empire through a description of some of its more colorful encounters. It also shows that the features of the poem ... More

This chapter discusses the story of the Georgics' reception by readers of the early Empire through a description of some of its more colorful encounters. It also shows that the features of the poem that drew the most notice, and sparked the most interesting intellectual and creative responses, were precisely the ones examined in previous chapters—the Georgics' fantasies about farm labor, its idealization of rural quietism, its protreptic to agronomy, and its poetic evocations of the passions. The texts considered in the chapter fall into two categories. Some deal with the environment of the poem's reception and are intended to shed light on its performance and circulation, the involvement of its readers in country life, or their reactions to similar works of agronomy or didactic verse. However, most of the texts come from ancient readers who were responding in various ways to the specific contents of the Georgics, and in particular to the four features here listed.Less