The Ancient Lives of Virgil
Literary and Historical Studies
edited by Anton Powell and Philip Hardie
Hardback (Published)
(December 2017)
ISBN: 9781910589618
5.98 x 10 inches
Price: $85.00
In stock
The Ancient Lives of the poet Virgil, written in prose (and sometimes in verse), have long enjoyed great, though controversial, influence. The present volume, from a distinguished international team, aims to revalue the Ancient Lives of Virgil from a variety of angles and in a variety of scholarly genres.
The Ancient Lives of the poet Virgil, written in prose (and sometimes in verse), have long enjoyed great, though controversial, influence. Modern critics have often been scornful of these Lives, for trying to construct biography of the poet from allegorical reading of his verse. Yet some elements of the Lives are trusted, and quietly adopted as canonical, most notably the dating of Virgil’s death. Some vignettes in the Lives have been cherished for their image of an emotive poet, as when Virgil, by evoking in verse the premature death of Augustus’ nephew Marcellus, caused the young man’s bereaved mother to faint. Less romantic detail from the Lives, as of Virgil’s privileged material circumstances at the heart of the Augustan regime, has been less regarded. The present volume, from a distinguished international team, aims to revalue the Ancient Lives of Virgil from a variety of angles and in a variety of scholarly genres. The allegory within the Lives is here studied for its own sake, and shown to be part of a developed Graeco-Roman school of interpretation. The literary character of the verse Life attributed to Phocas is respectfully analysed. Certain political references within the best-known prose Life, the `Suetonian-Donatan’, are shown to be apparently independent of allegory, and to be worth prospecting for new information on the poet’s personal history. And ideas of Virgil received and developed with brio in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance are here traced back to the Ancient Lives of the poet composed in Antiquity.
Contents (provisional) include: Irene Peirano Garrison (Yale) `Between biography and commentary: the ancient horizon of expectation of the Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil' Stephen Harrison (Oxford) `The Vita Phocae: literary context and texture' Scott McGill (Rice) `The elevation of Virgil in Phocas' Vita Vergiliana' Anton Powell (Swansea) `Sinning against philology? Historical method and the Suetonian-Donatan Life of Virgil' Hans Smolenaars (Amsterdam) ` The historical truth of Virgil's recitation of the Georgics in Atella (VSD ch. 27)' Ahuvia Kahane (Royal Holloway) `Biography and Virgil's Epitaph' Nora Goldschmidt (Durham) `Cameo roles: Virgil in Ovidian biography' Fabio Stok (Rome) `The Vita Donati in the Middle Ages'
- Edited by Philip Hardie
- Edited by Anton Powell
Other Titles in this Series
Similar Books
Nurturing the Elite
Representations of Drinking, Eating, and Religious Vessels in Palmyrene Funerary Iconography
Volume 13
After Life in Roman Paganism. L’Égypte des astrologues. Les Mages hellénisés
Introductions historiographiques
Volume 7
But the Wise Shall Understand
Reuse of Prophecies, Chronotope, and Merging of Eschatological Horizons in Daniel 10-12
Creation Concepts and Creation Care
Perspectives from Early Judaism, Early Christianity, and Beyond. Kontexte und Normen neutestamentlicher Ethik / Contexts and Norms of New Testament Ethics XVII
Stoic Presocratics – Presocratic Stoics
Studies in the Stoic Reception of Early Greek Philosophy
Volume 17
Thinking, Believing, and the Realm of Appearances
Plato's Epistemology of Perceptibles in the Later Dialogues
I Germani e l’Impero Romano. Storia e diritti
Saggi delle edizioni degli incontri 2024-2025
Volume 14
AElius Aristide et Xenophon
Regards d'un orateur greco-romain sur un classique de l'hellenisme
Volume 40
Antike und Antikerezeption in sachsischen Museen
Bestandsentwicklung - Ausstellungsgeschichte - Technologiewandel
Volume 2
Ce que la legende nous apprend de l’Histoire
Le minotaure, la guerre de Troie, Romulus et Remus... Grammaire de la legende
