Virgil
(70 - 19 BCE)
Timothy H. Wilson
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Virgil Reading from the Aeneid (1864)Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (French, 1780-1867)
Virgil is one of the greatest writers to have ever lived. His work created a cultural memory and a sense of a heroic past for the Roman people. In this way, he did for Rome what Homer had previously done for Greece, what Dante was later to do for medieval Italy and what Milton did for the reformed Christianity of seventeenth century England.
The Aeneid became a classic as soon as it was written and has remained so until this day. It is a work that has had a direct bearing and inspiration on much later Western literature and art. For instance, Dante chooses Virgil as his guide through the Inferno and Purgatorio in his monumental Divine Comedy. Upon first greeting Virgil in the Inferno, Dante proclaims:
Are you then that Virgil, and that fountain, that pours out so great a river of speech? O, glory and light to other poets, may that long study, and the great love, that made me scan your work, be worth something now. You are my master, and my author: you alone are the one from whom I learnt the high style that has brought me honour. (I.77-84)
Virgil's Aeneid is included on my list of the list of 101 Greatest Books of the Western Canon.
In addition, the following texts are included in my list of 1001 Great Books of the Western Canon:
Eclogues
Georgics
Course Materials
Course Materials
- Virgil's Eclogues: An Introduction
Lecture notes on Virgil's pastoral Eclogues (37 BCE). Some attention is paid to the historical context as well as to the literary influence of Virgil's Eclogues on later pastoral authors: Mantuan, Edmund Spenser and John Milton.
- Virgil's Aeneid: An Introduction
Lecture notes from a course on "Time and History in Literature" (Winter 2021). The lectures cover the overall relation of Virgil's work to the Homeric epics, the historical context of the Aeneid in the decline of the Roman Republic and the civil strife of the 1st Century BCE, the ambiguity of Virgil's relation to the Greek tradition and to philosophy, and the question of Virgil's attempt to celebrate the Roman achievement and the "way of the ancestors".
- Virgil's Aeneid: War and History
A series of four lectures on Virgil's epic from a course on "War in Literature" (Winter 2022). The lectures cover the cultural and historical background of Virgil's epic: namely, the historical context of the Aeneid in the decline of the Roman Republic and the civil strife of the 1st Century BCE, the ambiguity of Virgil's relation to the Greek tradition and to philosophy, and the question of Virgil's attempt to celebrate the Roman achievement and the "way of the ancestors". The lectures also include detailed discussions of Book 1 (the Opening of the Epic), Book 2 (the Fall of Troy), Book 4 (the Tragedy of Dido), Book 6 (Aeneas' Descent into the Underworld), and Book 8 (the Shield of Aeneas).
Reflections on the Great Books
Reflections on the Great Books
The Aeneid
The Aeneid
The Aeneid (Great Book Overview)
Notes on Virgil's Aeneid (Detailed notes on the Epic)
Other Great Books by Virgil
Other Great Books by Virgil
The Georgics
External Links
External Links
- On-line texts at Project Gutenberg
- Works of Virgil at Perseus Digital Library
- Works by Virgil at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- “Homer, The Odyssey and Virgil, The Aeneid" (Chapter 3 of Literature, the Humanities and Humanity by Theodore L. Steinberg)
- "The Aeneid" (Podcast on YouTube: Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 'The Aeneid', Virgil's great epic poem about Rome. Guests include Catherine Edwards, Edith Hall and Philip Hardie)
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