Virgil: Georgics: Volume 2, Books III-IV: v. 2: Bk.3&4

Description

This volume, the second of two companion volumes which provide a detailed commentary, with text, on the whole of Virgils Georgics, is devoted to Books III and IV of the poem. Professor Thomas describes the Georgics as perhaps the most difficult, certainly the most controversial, poem in Roman literature. He presents the Georgics as the finished poem of Virgils mature years, approaching it not merely as a part of the tradition of didactic poetry, but rather as a work which confronts, behind its generic appearance, issues not essentially different from those which inform the Eclogues and Aeneid. His introduction (in Volume 1 only) and Commentary argue that Virgils agricultural world, with its successes, failures and ultimate limitations, represents the arena for mans struggle with the realities of existence. Professor Thomas pays particular attention to Virgils allusion to and reshaping of prior Greek and Latin poetry. The Introduction also covers stylistic, metrical and structural questions. A subject index an