Vergil: A Biography

The eulogy of Messalla, written in 42 B.C., reveals Vergil already at work upon pastoral themes, to which, as he tells us, Messalla's Greek eclogues had called his attention. We...

In choosing between these two, Horace, of course, sympathizes with the ideals of the severe and chaste style, which he finds in the comedies of Fundanius. Vergil's early work, u...

his ubi sollicitos animi relevaverat aestus vocibus et blanda pectus spe luserat aegrum, paulatim tremebunda genis obducere vestem virginis et placidam tenebris captare quietem...

To the biographer, however, the passage praising Messalla's Greek pastorals is the most interesting for it reveals clearly how Vergil came to make the momentous decision of writ...

If Antony's style be a criterion, this new master of Vergil's was a rhetorician of the elaborate Asianistic style,[2] then still orthodox at Rome. This school--except in so far...

Again, I would suggest that it was at Naples that Vergil may most readily have come upon the "messianic" ideas that occur in the fourth _Eclogue_, for despite all the objections...

Finally, the careful reader will discover in Vergil's nature poetry a very modern attention to details such as we hardly expect to find before the nineteenth century. Here again...

Finally, I would suggest that the strange and still unexplained[8] omen of Acestes' burning arrow in 11. 520 ff. probably refers to some event of importance to Segesta in the sa...

Modern literary criticism has accustomed us to interpret our masterpieces in the light of the author's daily experiences and the conditions of the society in which he lived. The...

The very deep sympathy of Vergil for the poor exiles rings also through the _Dirae_, a very surprising poem which he wrote at this same time, but on second thought suppressed. I...

The _Aeneid_ is also a remarkably religious poem to have come from one who had devoted so many enthusiastic years to a materialistic philosophy. Indeed it is usual to assume tha...