Virgil's Experience: Nature and History: Times, Names, and PlacesThis book studies Virgil's ideas of nature, history, sense of nation, and sense of identity. It is exact and patient in its probing for nuance and detail, but also bold, wide, and original in its scope. It combines the study of Virgil with the study of attitudes to nature throughout antiquity. Blending literature with history, and in the case of Lucretius, philosophy, it offers a vision and an interpretation of the culture of the 1st century BC as a whole. It argues that Lucretius and Virgil affected a revolution in Western sensibility; claiming that a book about poetry should be a book about life, it combines scholarship and precision with a sense of the importance of literature and its capacity to enhance our understanding of our past and of ourselves. |
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Page 33
... Once the co - ordinates have placed Odysseus , Homer no longer seems much further interested in a distinctive geography ; true , not every island known to the Greeks had a wooded hill , but the brief depic- tion of Ithaca fits ...
... Once the co - ordinates have placed Odysseus , Homer no longer seems much further interested in a distinctive geography ; true , not every island known to the Greeks had a wooded hill , but the brief depic- tion of Ithaca fits ...
Page 39
... Once more , much of the impressiveness comes from the context . At a rite , the priest calls on the congregation to be silent ; and in the silence the god comes . The hush here is the hush of worship ; inanimate nature becomes sentient ...
... Once more , much of the impressiveness comes from the context . At a rite , the priest calls on the congregation to be silent ; and in the silence the god comes . The hush here is the hush of worship ; inanimate nature becomes sentient ...
Page 58
... once . Today we have lost the sense of terra incognita ; but the ancient world was full of amaz- ing and inexplicable facts in a way that ours is not . Augustine was astonished by the magnet ; he lists marvellous facts , beyond explana ...
... once . Today we have lost the sense of terra incognita ; but the ancient world was full of amaz- ing and inexplicable facts in a way that ours is not . Augustine was astonished by the magnet ; he lists marvellous facts , beyond explana ...
Page 62
... once more that larger theme : a man's ' great love of the earth ' is a fundamental part of his humanity , and goes beyond simple relief at escaping from a watery grave . 108 We might equally expect the description of the beautiful ...
... once more that larger theme : a man's ' great love of the earth ' is a fundamental part of his humanity , and goes beyond simple relief at escaping from a watery grave . 108 We might equally expect the description of the beautiful ...
Page 80
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Contents
21 | |
A Transpadanes Experience | 73 |
The Neoteric Experience | 131 |
Energy and Delight | 211 |
The Conquest of Death | 252 |
Earth and Country | 297 |
Land and Nation | 341 |
The Wanderings of Aeneas | 389 |
Latinus Kingdom | 463 |
Evanders Kingdom | 515 |
The Later Aeneid | 564 |
Virgil and the Poets | 593 |
Virgil Augustus and the Future | 631 |
Labor Improbus | 678 |
Index of Passages Cited | 685 |
Index of Greek and Latin Words | 704 |
Other editions - View all
Virgil's Experience: Nature and History, Times, Names, and Places Richard Jenkyns No preview available - 1998 |
Virgil's Experience: Nature and History, Times, Names, and Places Richard Jenkyns No preview available - 1998 |
Common terms and phrases
Achilles adjective Aeneas Aeneid Anchises ancient Arcadia Ascanius atque Augustan Augustus Caesar Callimachus Carm Catullus Cicero colour comes context contrast Creusa death describes Dido distinctive divine earth echoes Eclogues emotional Ennius epic Epicurus Evander experience father Faunus feel force Georgics glory goddess gods golden age Greek hero Homer Horace human idea Iliad imagination Italian Italy Jupiter land landscape later Latin Latium laus Italiae lines literary look Lucr Lucretius meaning metaphor moral nature Nymphs Odyssey once Ovid Pallas paradox passage pastoral pathetic fallacy patriotic perhaps phrase poem poem's poet poet's poetic poetry praise Propertius quae rerum river Roman Rome scene seems seen sense sentence significance simile speech spirit story suggests tells theme Theocritus things Tiber Tiberinus Tibullus tion tone Transpadane Trojans Troy Turnus Venus verse Virgil vision whole woods words