The Cambridge Companion to Virgil

by Charles Martindale (Editor)

Overview

Virgil became a school author in his own lifetime and the centre of the Western canon for the next 1800 years, exerting a major influence on European literature, art, and politics. This Companion is designed as an indispensable guide for anyone seeking a fuller understanding of an author critical to so many disciplines. It consists of essays by seventeen scholars from Britain, the USA, Ireland and Italy which offer a range of different perspectives both traditional and innovative on Virgil's works, and a renewed sense of why Virgil matters today. The Companion is divided into four main sections, focussing on reception, genre, context, and form. This ground-breaking book not only provides a wealth of material for an informed reading but also offers sophisticated insights which point to the shape of Virgilian scholarship and criticism to come.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107484795
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/02/1997
Series:	Cambridge Companions to Literature
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Charles Martindale is Emeritus Professor of Latin at the University of Bristol. His work focuses on Latin poetry (including Virgil), reception studies, English/Classics relationships, and aesthetics, and he has published five authored or co-authored books and twelve edited or co-edited volumes, among them the 5-volume Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature. A special issue of Classical Receptions Journal was devoted to his pioneering work Redeeming the Text (1993).

Fiachra Mac Góráin is Associate Professor of Classics at University College London. He has published extensively on Virgil and his reception and is regularly invited to speak about him in various countries around the world. He has also engaged in consultancy work for the BBC.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Preface; 1. Introduction: 'The classic of all Europe' Charles Martindale; Part I. Translation and Reception: 2. Virgil in English translation Colin Burrow; 3. Modern receptions and their interpretative implications Duncan F. Kennedy; 4. Aspects of Virgil's reception in Antiquity R. J. Tarrant; 5. The Virgil commentary of Servius Don Fowler; 6. Virgils, from Dante to Milton Colin Burrow; 7. Virgil in art M. J. H. Liversidge; Part II. Genre and Poetic Career: 8. Green politics: the Eclogues Charles Martindale; 9. Virgilian didaxis: value and meaning in the Georgics William Batstone; 10. Virgilian epic Duncan F. Kennedy; 11. Closure: the Book of Virgil Elena Theodorakopoulos; Part III. Contexts of Production: 12. Poetry and power: Virgil's poetry in contemporary context R. J. Tarrant; 13. Rome and its traditions James E. G. Zetzel; 14. Virgil and the cosmos: religious and philosophical ideas Susanna Morton Braund; 15. The Virgilian intertext Joseph Farrell; Part IV. Contents and Forms: 16. Virgil's style James J. O'Hara; 17. Virgilian narrative: (a) Storytelling Don Fowler; (b) Ecphrasis Alessandro Barchiesi; 18. Approaching characterisation in Virgil Andrew Laird; 19. Sons and lovers: sexuality and gender in Virgil's poetry Ellen Oliensis; 20. Virgil and tragedy Philip Hardie; 21. Envoi: the death of Virgil Fiona Cox; Dateline; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"One of the...qualities of this book is its general commitment to newer critical modalities and sometimes bracingly fresh critical sensitivities." Dan Hooley, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"An accessible and up-to-date picture of the state of Virgilian studies." Margaret Worsham Musgrove, Religious Studies Review

From the Publisher