Virgils Map: Geography, Empire, and the Georgics

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Virgils Georgics depicts the world and its peoples in great detail, but this geographical interest has received little detailed scholarly attention. Hundreds of years later, readers in the British empire used the poem to reflect upon their travels in acts of imagination no less political than Virgils own. Virgils Map combines a comprehensive survey of the literary, economic, and political geography of the Georgics with a case study of its British imperial reception c. 18401930. Part One charts the poems geographical interests in relation to Roman power in and beyond the Mediterranean; shifting readers attention away from Rome, it explores how the Georgics can draw attention to alternative, non-Roman histories. Part Two examines how British travellers quoted directly from the poem to describe peoples and places across the world, at times equating the colonial subjects of European empires to the happy farmers of Virgils poem, perceived to be unaware, and in need, of the blessings of colonial rule. Drawing attention to the depoliticization of the poem in scholarly discourse, and using newly discovered archival material, this interdisciplinary work seeks to re-politicize both the poem and its history in service of a decolonizing pedagogy. Its unique dual focus allows for an extended exploration, not just of geography and empire, but of Europes long relationship with the wider world.

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A very useful discussion of the socio-political and economic importance to the metropole of the myriad places and peoples of (or potentially of) the Roman empire referenced by the Georgics, and a good compendium of more modern references to the Georgics in the context of British imperialism during the years 1840 to 1930. * The Classical Review *
Kerrigan makes a powerful case for the repoliticization of the Georgics, a text that has been over-aestheticized in its reception from the time of Joseph Addison onwards. He proposes a decolonializing reading as a complement to existing interpretations and offers a brilliant pedagogic model for classicists to pursue. -- Susanna Braund, Professor of Latin Poetry and its Reception, University of British Columbia, Canada

Author Bio

Charlie Kerrigan is a Research Fellow in Classics at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.