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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... tion of nature . Though my discussions of Greek poetry , Lucretius , and so on find place here because of their significance to Virgil , I hope that they are of value in their own right . They are also designed to contribute to another ...
... tion of nature . Though my discussions of Greek poetry , Lucretius , and so on find place here because of their significance to Virgil , I hope that they are of value in their own right . They are also designed to contribute to another ...
Page 3
... tion of rock and inlet , yet all ruffled by the same breezes , fretted by the same unceasing seas . The historian is a species of surveyor or cartographer ; his task is to map these territories . The interpreter of a recent period may ...
... tion of rock and inlet , yet all ruffled by the same breezes , fretted by the same unceasing seas . The historian is a species of surveyor or cartographer ; his task is to map these territories . The interpreter of a recent period may ...
Page 23
... tion of pathos to inanimate things is found occasionally in Homer , as when spears eagerly strike a man's chest or long to enjoy flesh.6 But such instances are comparatively rare , especially in the case of natural objects . They tend ...
... tion of pathos to inanimate things is found occasionally in Homer , as when spears eagerly strike a man's chest or long to enjoy flesh.6 But such instances are comparatively rare , especially in the case of natural objects . They tend ...
Page 31
... tion ; there is no word for ' dark ' or ' shade ' anywhere in the simply a succession of natural features , listed one by one , with a perfect lucidity . None the less , though Homer's famous clarity and objectivity remain , the scene ...
... tion ; there is no word for ' dark ' or ' shade ' anywhere in the simply a succession of natural features , listed one by one , with a perfect lucidity . None the less , though Homer's famous clarity and objectivity remain , the scene ...
Page 33
... tion of Ithaca fits recognizably into the mould of the Homeric gen- eralized description . The mount is conspicuous and seen from afar ; what mountain is not ? It is ' waving - leaved ' ; but all leaves wave . There is thus something in ...
... tion of Ithaca fits recognizably into the mould of the Homeric gen- eralized description . The mount is conspicuous and seen from afar ; what mountain is not ? It is ' waving - leaved ' ; but all leaves wave . There is thus something in ...
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