Reflections and New Perspectives on Virgil's Georgics

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Virgils Georgics, the most neglected of the poets three major works, is brought to life and infused with fresh meanings in this dynamic collection of new readings. The Georgics is shown to be a rich field of inherited and varied literary forms, actively inviting a wide range of interpretations as well as deep reflection on its place within the tradition of didactic poetry. The essays contained in this volume contributed by scholars from Australia, Europe and North America offer new approaches and interpretive methods that greatly enhance our understanding of Virgils poem. In the process, they unearth an array of literary and philosophical sources which exerted a rich influence on the Georgics but whose impact has hitherto been underestimated in scholarship. A second goal of the volume is to examine how the Georgics with its profound meditations on humankind, nature, and the socio-political world of its creation has been (re)interpreted and appropriated by readers and critics from antiquity to the modern era. The volume opens up a number of exciting new research avenues for the study of the reception of the Georgics by highlighting the myriad ways in which the poem has been understood by ancient readers, early modern poets, explorers of the 'New World', and female translators of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Reviews

These original essays offer a welcome boost to study of the Georgics. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
In a very well done introduction, B. Xinyue and N. Freer, having explained their motives in detail, take stock of the Georgics' approaches in the second half of the 20th century and at the start of the 21st century. One can immediately tell that they are experts in the subject. Not only do they cite many books, they also analyse them at length, with precision and finesse. * Revue des tudes Anciennes (trans. by Bloomsbury) *
Their introduction is a useful mise jour, nicely surveying recent work. * Greece & Rome *

Author Bio

Bobby Xinyue is British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in Latin Literature and Renaissance Studies at the University of Warwick, UK. Nicholas Freer is Teaching Fellow in Latin Literature at the University of Durham, UK.