Influenced by the greek poet Theocritus, Virgil composed his first major work, the Eclogues also called the Bucolics , using Homeric hexameter lines to explore pastoral rather than epic themes.
The poem reflected the sorrows of the times, and exhibited rhythmic control and elegance superior to that of Virgil's successors. Published in 39 to 38 B. Continuing in the pastoral tradition, Virgil spent seven years writing his next great work, the Georgics —a poem John Dryden called "the best Poem by the best Poet. The poem was written at the request of Maecenas, another patron of the arts, and was first read to Octavian in 29 B.
Before the work was finished, however, Virgil decided to travel to Greece in 19 B. During his travels, he met with Octavian who had since been given the title Augustus who convinced Virgil to return with him to Italy. On their way from Athens to Corinth, Virgil caught a fever which grew increasingly severe during their voyage. Virgil died on September 21 and was buried near Naples. Before his death, Virgil reportedly commanded his literary executors to destroy the unfinished manuscript of his masterwork, but Augustus used his power to ensure the epic's safety, and the Aeneid went on to become a popular textbook in Roman and later medieval schools.
After the collapse of the Roman empire, scholars continued to see the value of Virgil's talents, and the Aeneid lasted as the central Latin literary text. He also found an increasing audience of Christian readers drawn both to his depiction of the founding of the Holy City and to a passage in the fourth Eclogue which was interpreted to be a prophecy of Christ. Much later, Virgil's epic was one of the bases for Dante Alighieri 's own masterwork, The Divine Comedy , documenting a journey through hell, during which the character of Virgil acts as a guide.
The reader would hold the scroll in one hand and unwind it with the other onto another spool, a very unwieldy method. After Virgil's death, the Aeneid magnified his fame. It was studied in schools, and numerous biographies of the poet were written — a sure sign of popular interest. The earliest and longest of these, dating from the fourth century, is by the grammarian Aelius Donatus, whose source of information was a lost Life of Virgil by the Roman historian Suetonius, who is best known for his Lives of the Caesars , about the first twelve Roman emperors.
Around the end of the fifth century, Ambrosius Macrobius, another grammarian, composed a dialogue called Saturnalia , in which guests at a fictional dinner party discuss the Aeneid. The dialogue offers a picture of Rome's cultured pagan society as it was just before it became Christian. Among the guests at the dinner is a professor named Servius, who in real life wrote a commentary on the Aeneid that, in spite of factual errors, has been a valuable source of information for later scholars.
Following Rome's conversion to Christianity, Virgil continued to be highly regarded. During the Middle Ages, he was thought to have had "a naturally Christian soul" — the conventional expression used to identify a person who, it was believed, would have embraced Christianity but for the accident of having been born before Christ.
This conviction was based on the evidence of Virgil's compassionate nature, which is manifested throughout the Aeneid , and on the belief that Virgil had foretold the coming of Christ in the fourth Eclogue , in which he prophesies a golden age of peace and good will ushered in by the birth of a divine child.
He also became the subject of many legends that obscured his real importance as a poet by featuring him as a magician with supernatural powers. Still, his works continued to be read; even people who abhorred Rome's former worship of Jupiter, Minerva, and other pagan gods used Virgil's texts to teach Latin grammar and style. During the European Renaissance — roughly, the s to the s, an era marked by a rebirth of interest in classical art, learning, and literature — both Greek and Roman writers were fervently admired and imitated.
Knowledge of the Greek language, which had been lost during the Middle Ages, was once more available. Homer was again read in the original, and Virgil was increasingly and universally admired. The eighteenth century was one that especially esteemed elegance and artifice, and so Virgil was prized. However, under the influence of romanticism, which came toward the end of the century and prevailed in the first part of the next, there was a change in critical standards.
Enthusiasm and the free expression of individual feelings were prized by Keats, Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth, and Coleridge — the great poets of this era, and all radically different in spirit from Virgil.
For these romanticists, Aeneas represented the hero who favors the founding of a state over the more important goals of personal happiness and fulfillment.
The Aeneid continues to be read today for two main reasons. The first is that, like all successful poets, Virgil expresses in powerful and beautiful language the humanity that we share with him over the centuries that separate us. The second reason why the Aeneid continues to be read is that, along with other Roman writings and achievements, it forms a priceless part of the cultural heritage of modern Western civilization. Although the events described in the epic belong far more to the realm of myth and legend than to actual history, the poem gives us, for that very reason, an idealized picture of the way a great people wished to see themselves and their place in the world.
Our understanding of their aspirations adds to our knowledge of our past. The Aeneid , then, in addition to appealing to us as a timeless work of literature, also has a documentary interest for present-day readers. Brundisium, Italy Roman poet. Virgil, or Publius Vergilius Maro, is regarded as one of the greatest Roman poets. The Romans regarded his Aeneid, published two years after his death, as their national epic a long poem centered around a legendary hero.
Virgil was born on October 15, 70 B. His father, either a potter or a laborer, worked for a certain Magius, who, attracted by the intelligence and industry of his employee, allowed him to marry his daughter, Magia.
Because the marriage improved his position, Virgil's father was able to give his son the education reserved for children of higher status. Virgil began his study in Cremona, continued it in Milan, and then went on to Rome to study rhetoric the study of writing , medicine, and mathematics before giving himself to philosophy the study of knowledge under Siro the Epicurean. His education prepared him for the profession of law the alternative was a military career , but he spoke only once in court.
He was shy, retiring, and of halting speech—no match for the aggressive, well-spoken lawyers of the Roman court. Virgil returned from Rome to his family's farm near Mantua to spend his days in study and writing and to be near his parents. His father was blind and possibly dying.
His mother had lost two other sons, one in infancy, the other at the age of seventeen. When Virgil's father died, she remarried and bore another son, Valerius Proculus, to whom Virgil left half his fortune. In appearance Virgil was tall and dark, his face reflecting the rural lower-class stock from which he came. His health was never strong. Horace 65—8 B. Poor health and his shy nature and love of study made him a recluse, or one who withdraws from the world. The farm of Virgil's father was among the land confiscated forcefully taken as payment for the victorious soldiers of the Battle of Philippi 42 B.
But Augustus 63 B. Virgil then rendered thanks to young Caesar in his first Eclogue. The final phrase of the epitaph etching on a tombstone on Virgil's supposed tomb at Naples runs "cecini pascua, rura, duces I sang of pastures, of sown fields, and of leaders.
The Eclogues this, the more usual title, means "Select Poems"; they are also known as Virgil. Reproduced by permission of the Gamma Liaison Network. Bucolics, or "Pastorals" were written between 42 B. These ten poems, songs of shepherds, all about one hundred lines long, were modeled on the pastoral poems, or Idylls, of Theocritus of Syracuse c.
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