Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Penguin Classics (1988), Paperback, 160 pages
Description
Part agricultural manual, part political poem and allegory, the Georgics' scenes are real and vivid, and the poet-farmer Peter Fallon restores to life the sights, sounds, and textures of the ancient Italian landscape. - ;'A countryman cleaves earth with his crooked plough. Such is the labour. of his life. So he sustains his native land ...'. Virgil's affectionate poem of the land does not admit brief excerpts, any more than the labour of the farmer can easily be shortened. His verse, descriptive and narrative, brings us the disappointments as well as the rewards of the countryman's year-round
Media reviews
Virgil's "poem of the land" has shaped the way that English poets write about nature and the countryside since the Renaissance.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Snukes
This was the hardest book to read. I don't know why it was worse than any of the other classics, but it about killed me. Even illustrating the margins didn't help. Good luck
LibraryThing member meandmybooks
I knew going in that this wasn't going to be action packed, like, say, The Aeneid, and it isn't. Actually, that's not quite true. In some places there is plenty of action – where the plague is setting in and everything is dying, where the cattle and horses are going mad with desire (not for each
There were a few places where I found Fallon's modern colloquialisms and word choices jarring, but mostly the poetry was really lovely. Since I'm not competent to read Latin poetry, I've no idea how this is as a translation, but I do plan to keep an eye out for a different version – Fitzgerald's Aeneid had a more formal feel to it, and this felt a little to “folksy” to me, but maybe the two poems are just very different beasts. The language is very readable, anyway, and the footnotes are good (though I wish they'd been put at the foot of the pages).
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other, thankfully), where the young bull is being pulverized so that he will spontaneously combust into a swarm of bees, where Orpheus is very nearly rescuing Eurydice from Hades... there is really quite a lot of drama here. The drama is broken up, though, by sections in which we are milking goats, arranging shrubberies for bees, and grafting fruit trees. Disease, muck, and war alternate with idyllic stretches of lambs frolicking, bees buzzing among the flowers, and happy farmers resting under shady trees. I picked this up looking for more of the beautiful nature imagery I loved in the Aeneid, and I definitely found that, but the back and forth, between farming lessons, country-living fantasies, myths, and death & destruction kept things interesting. The different sections did not hold together particularly well for me, but I only read this once, with no explanatory material aside from the introduction, and I expect I'd have gotten more out of it if I'd put more in.There were a few places where I found Fallon's modern colloquialisms and word choices jarring, but mostly the poetry was really lovely. Since I'm not competent to read Latin poetry, I've no idea how this is as a translation, but I do plan to keep an eye out for a different version – Fitzgerald's Aeneid had a more formal feel to it, and this felt a little to “folksy” to me, but maybe the two poems are just very different beasts. The language is very readable, anyway, and the footnotes are good (though I wish they'd been put at the foot of the pages).
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LibraryThing member tomatoejane
The best translation I've found so far. This is the poem of the world!
LibraryThing member fromula
This is just a completely awesome poem. I always thought of Latin poetry as being sort of Gorey-esque: cool but heavy, dusty, and brocaded, replete with busts of dead Great Figures. This is nothing like that: refreshing, natural; I read it every Spring.
LibraryThing member markbstephenson
Beautiful didactic poem, especially attractive section on bee-keeping
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
The Works and Days by the ancient Greek poet Hesiod was written around 700 BC. At its center, the Works and Days is a farmer's almanac in which Hesiod instructs his brother Perses in the agricultural arts. It also contains an outline of the mythology of the gods of ancient Greece. In the poem
The Georgics itself is a poem in four books, published in 29 BC. It is the second major work by the Latin poet Virgil, following his Eclogues and preceding the Aeneid. As its name suggests (Georgica, from the Greek word γεωργεῖν, geōrgein, "to farm") the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from being an example of peaceful rural poetry, it is a more complex work in both theme and purpose.
The work consists of 2,188 hexametric verses divided into four books. Each of the books covers different aspects of the agrarian culture. Book One begins with a summary of the whole poem and typical obeisance to the gods and Augustus himself. In addition to Virgil's intention to honor Caesar he also honors his patron Maecenas. In the middle books he shares his lofty poetic aspirations and the difficulty of the material to follow.
Mirroring Hesiod Virgil describes the succession of ages of man emphasizing the tension between the golden age of Jupiter and the age of man. The focus on the importance of Augustus is fascinating as it adds a political aspect to what is primarily an arcadian poem. Throughout the poem the theme of man versus nature is present as is the relation of man to animals. I found the discussion of Bees and the similarities with human society in the fourth Book one of the most fascinating sections of this marvelous poem.
Always of interest to me are philosophical influences, and there were two predominant philosophical schools in Rome during Virgil's lifetime: Stoicism and the Epicureanism. Of these two, the Epicurean strain is predominant not only in the Georgics but also in Virgil's social and intellectual milieu. Both his friend,the poet Horace, and his patron Maecenas were Epicureans. The Georgics was also influenced by Lucretius' Epicurean epic De Rerum Natura, one of my favorite Roman texts. The combination of philosophy, arcadian poetry, mythology, and politics makes this work a beautiful compendium of Roman culture.
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Hesiod also offers his brother extensive moralizing advice on how he should live his life. I mention this because The Works and Days was the poet Virgil's model for composing his own didactic poem in hexameters known as The Georgics. Like many of the Roman writers and artists, Virgil looked to the Greeks for a model. Works and Days shares with the Georgics the themes of man's relationship to the land and the importance of hard work.The Georgics itself is a poem in four books, published in 29 BC. It is the second major work by the Latin poet Virgil, following his Eclogues and preceding the Aeneid. As its name suggests (Georgica, from the Greek word γεωργεῖν, geōrgein, "to farm") the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from being an example of peaceful rural poetry, it is a more complex work in both theme and purpose.
The work consists of 2,188 hexametric verses divided into four books. Each of the books covers different aspects of the agrarian culture. Book One begins with a summary of the whole poem and typical obeisance to the gods and Augustus himself. In addition to Virgil's intention to honor Caesar he also honors his patron Maecenas. In the middle books he shares his lofty poetic aspirations and the difficulty of the material to follow.
Mirroring Hesiod Virgil describes the succession of ages of man emphasizing the tension between the golden age of Jupiter and the age of man. The focus on the importance of Augustus is fascinating as it adds a political aspect to what is primarily an arcadian poem. Throughout the poem the theme of man versus nature is present as is the relation of man to animals. I found the discussion of Bees and the similarities with human society in the fourth Book one of the most fascinating sections of this marvelous poem.
Always of interest to me are philosophical influences, and there were two predominant philosophical schools in Rome during Virgil's lifetime: Stoicism and the Epicureanism. Of these two, the Epicurean strain is predominant not only in the Georgics but also in Virgil's social and intellectual milieu. Both his friend,the poet Horace, and his patron Maecenas were Epicureans. The Georgics was also influenced by Lucretius' Epicurean epic De Rerum Natura, one of my favorite Roman texts. The combination of philosophy, arcadian poetry, mythology, and politics makes this work a beautiful compendium of Roman culture.
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Awards
Prix Jules Janin (1932)
Prix Laure-Bataillon (2019)
Language
Original language
Latin
Original publication date
29 BCE
Physical description
160 p.; 7.88 inches
ISBN
0140444149 / 9780140444148