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. |
From inside the book
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Page
... vision , and the interplay between tradition and the indi- vidual talent is as fascinating in him as anywhere in literary history . Accordingly , both the treatment of nature in Greek poetry and the culture of Italy form part of my ...
... vision , and the interplay between tradition and the indi- vidual talent is as fascinating in him as anywhere in literary history . Accordingly , both the treatment of nature in Greek poetry and the culture of Italy form part of my ...
Page 19
... vision might remind us that the river , friend to the new arrivals and spokesman for the Italian earth , is also a formidable power.37 In another place Aeneas himself compares his prospect of the fall of Troy to a torrent in spate ...
... vision might remind us that the river , friend to the new arrivals and spokesman for the Italian earth , is also a formidable power.37 In another place Aeneas himself compares his prospect of the fall of Troy to a torrent in spate ...
Page 20
... vision of the Italian experience . The Georgics was written partly when civil conflict seemed endless , partly after peace was secure , and both times are reflected in it ; he must have begun it without knowing what vision of the nation ...
... vision of the Italian experience . The Georgics was written partly when civil conflict seemed endless , partly after peace was secure , and both times are reflected in it ; he must have begun it without knowing what vision of the nation ...
Page 30
... vision . Her name , her function and her landscape form a unity . The strength of her desire for Odysseus is evoked by the scene about her ; this setting , dark and yet luxuriant , thick with leaves and flowers , heavy with fruit- age ...
... vision . Her name , her function and her landscape form a unity . The strength of her desire for Odysseus is evoked by the scene about her ; this setting , dark and yet luxuriant , thick with leaves and flowers , heavy with fruit- age ...
Page 41
... vision of nature and man's relation to it , including kinds of perception which Virgil will rediscover , travelling by a quite different route . Here we are dealing not , it would appear , with the influence of one poet on a successor ...
... vision of nature and man's relation to it , including kinds of perception which Virgil will rediscover , travelling by a quite different route . Here we are dealing not , it would appear , with the influence of one poet on a successor ...
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