Vergil

Vergil or Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) (both: vûr`jil), 70 B.C.–19 B.C., Roman poet, b. Andes dist., near Mantua, in Cisalpine Gaul; the spelling Virgil is not found earlier than the 5th cent. A.D. Vergil's father, a farmer, took his son to Cremona for his education. Thereafter Vergil continued his studies in Milan, Naples, and Rome. The poet's boyhood experience of life on the farm was an essential part of his education. After his studies in Rome, Vergil is believed to have lived with his father for about 10 years, engaged in farm work, study, and writing poetry. In 41 B.C. the farm was confiscated to provide land for soldiers. Vergil went to Rome, where he became a part of the literary circle patronized by Maecenas and Augustus and where his Eclogues, or Bucolics, were completed in 37 B.C. In these poems he idealizes rural life in the manner of his Greek predecessor Theocritus. From the Eclogues, Vergil turned to rural poetry of a contrasting kind, realistic and didactic. In his Georgics, completed in 30 B.C., he seeks, as had the Greek Hesiod before him, to interpret the charm of real life and work on the farm. His perfect poetic expression gives him the first place among pastoral poets.

For the rest of his life Vergil worked on the Aeneid, a national epic honoring Rome and foretelling prosperity to come. The adventures of Aeneas are unquestionably one of the greatest long poems in world literature. Vergil made Aeneas the paragon of the most revered Roman virtues—devotion to family, loyalty to the state, and piety. In 12 books, Vergil tells how Aeneas escaped from Troy to Carthage, where he became Dido's lover and related his adventures to her. At Jupiter's command, he left Carthage, went to Sicily, visited his father's shade in Hades, and landed in Italy. There he established the beginnings of the Roman state and waged successful war against the natives. The work ends with the death of Turnus at the hands of Aeneas. The verse, in dactylic hexameters, is strikingly regular, though Vergil's death left the epic incomplete and some of the lines unfinished. The sonority of the words and the nobility of purpose make the Aeneid a masterpiece. Vergil is the dominant figure in all Latin literature. His influence continued unabated through the Middle Ages, and many poets since Dante have acknowledged their great debt to him. Minor poems ascribed to Vergil are of doubtful authorship. For translations of the Aeneid see A. Mandelbaum (1981), R. Fitzgerald (1983, 1985), and R. Fagles (2006).

Bibliography

See biographies by F. J. H. Letters (1946), T. Frank (1922, repr. 1965), and B. Otis (1966); W. F. J. Knight, Vergil, Epic and Anthropology (1967); F. Cairns, Virgil's Augustan Epic (1989); K. W. Grandsen, Virgil (1990).

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Virgil

 or Vergil orig. Publius Vergilius Maro

(born Oct. 15, 70, Andes, near Mantua—died Sept. 21, 19 BC, Brundisium) Greatest of Roman poets. The well-educated son of a prosperous provincial farmer, Virgil led a quiet life, though he eventually became a member of the circle around Octavian (later Caesar Augustus) and was patronized by Maecenas. His first major work, the 10 pastoral Eclogues (42–37), may be read as a prophecy of tranquility, and one has even been read as a prophecy of Christianity. The Georgics (37–30) point toward a Golden Age in the form of practical goals: the repopulation of rural lands and the rehabilitation of agriculture. His great epic, the Aeneid (begun c. 29, but unfinished at his death), is one of the masterpieces of world literature. A celebration of the founding of Rome by the legendary Aeneas at the request of Augustus, whose consolidation of power in 31–30 unified the Roman world, it also explores the themes of war and the pathos of unrequited love. In later centuries his works were regarded in the Roman Empire as virtually sacred. He was taken up reverently by Christians as well, including Dante, who, in his poem The Divine Comedy, made Virgil his guide through hell and purgatory.

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Virgil, Vergil

Latin name Publius Vergilius Maro. 70--19 bc, Roman poet, patronized by Maecenas. The Eclogues (42--37), ten pastoral poems, and the Georgics (37--30), four books on the art of farming, established Virgil as the foremost poet of his age. His masterpiece is the Aeneid (30--19)

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Vergil

Dante’s guide in Hell and Purgatory. [Ital. Lit.: Divine Comedy, Magill I 211–213]

See : Guide