Georgics

Virgil

ISBN 10: 1521776032 ISBN 13: 9781521776032

Verlag: Independently published, 2017

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The Georgics is a poem by Latin poet Virgil, likely published in 29 BC. As the name suggests (from the Greek word γεωργικά, geōrgika, i.e. "agricultural (things)") the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from being an example of peaceful rural poetry, it is a work characterized by tensions in both theme and purpose. The Georgics is considered Virgil's second major work, following his Eclogues and preceding the Aeneid. The poem draws on a variety of prior sources, and has influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present. Virgil's model for composing a didactic poem in hexameters is the archaic Greek poet Hesiod, whose poem Works and Days shares with the Georgics the themes of man's relationship to the land and the importance of hard work. The Hellenistic poet Nicander's lost Georgics may also be an important influence. Virgil used other Greek writers as models and sources, some for technical information, including the Hellenistic poet Aratus for astronomy and meteorology, Nicander for information about snakes, the philosopher Aristotle for zoology, and Aristotle's student Theophrastus for botany, and others, such as the Hellenistic poet Callimachus for poetic and stylistic considerations. The Greek literary tradition from Homer on also serves as an important source for Virgil's use of mythological detail and digression. The two predominant philosophical schools in Rome during Virgil's lifetime were Stoicism and Epicureanism. Of these two, the Epicurean strain is predominant not only in the Georgics but also in Virgil's social and intellectual milieu. Varius Rufus, a close friend of Virgil and the man who published the Aeneid after Virgil's death, had Epicurean tastes, as did Horace and his patron Maecenas. The philosophical text with the greatest influence on the Georgics as a whole was Lucretius' Epicurean epic De Rerum Natura. G. B. Conte notes, citing the programmatic statement in Georgics 2.490–502, which draws from De Rerum Natura 1.78–9, "the basic impulse for the Georgics came from a dialogue with Lucretius." Likewise, David West remarks in his discussion of the plague in the third book, Virgil is "saturated with the poetry of Lucretius, and its words, phrases, thought and rhythms have merged in his mind, and become transmuted into an original work of poetic art."

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• Verlag: Independently published
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1521776032
• ISBN 13: 9781521776032
• Einband: Rústica
• Anzahl der Seiten: 65