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

by Philip Thibodeau

Overview

Playing the Farmer reinvigorates our understanding of Vergil’s Georgics, a vibrant work written by Rome’s premier epic poet shortly before he began the Aeneid. Setting the Georgics in the social context of its day, Philip Thibodeau for the first time connects the poem’s idyllic, and idealized, portrait of rustic life and agriculture with changing attitudes toward the countryside in late Republican and early Imperial Rome. He argues that what has been seen as a straightforward poem about agriculture is in fact an enchanting work of fantasy that elevated, and sometimes whitewashed, the realities of country life. Drawing from a wide range of sources, Thibodeau shows how Vergil’s poem reshaped agrarian ideals in its own time, and how it influenced Roman poets, philosophers, agronomists, and orators. Playing the Farmer brings a fresh perspective to a work that was praised by Dryden as “the best poem by the best poet.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520268326
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	07/05/2011
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Philip Thibodeau is Associate Professor of Classics at Brooklyn College.

Table of Contents

Introduction

One. Agricolae Two. Playing the Farmer Three. Nobility in Rustication Four. A Protreptic to Agronomy Five. To Enchant Readers Six. The Reception of the Georgics in Early Imperial Rome

Appendix One. Vergil's Economic Status Appendix Two. Early Readership of the Georgics

Notes Bibliography Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Well-written and thought-provoking, Thibodeau's book is a pleasure to read."—Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Bmcr)

"Lucidly written."—Choice

Editorial Reviews

"T.'s book is well structured, well written, and - in the opinion of this reviewer, at any rate - largely convincing."

Hermathena

Well-written and thought-provoking, Thibodeau’s book is a pleasure to read.

Bryn Mawr Classical Review (BMCR) - Grant A. Nelsestuen

Lucidly written.

Choice

Compelling. . . . Clearly written. . . . Contributes much of value by taking a fresh look at the Georgics.

Jrnl Of Roman Stds/Jrnl Of Hellenic Stds - Leah Kronenberg

"Well-written and thought-provoking, Thibodeau's book is a pleasure to read."—Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Bmcr)

"Lucidly written."—Choice

"Compelling. . . . Clearly written. . . . Contributes much of value by taking a fresh look at the Georgics."—Jrnl of Roman Stds/Jrnl of Hellenic Stds

From the Publisher