Difference between revisions of "Virgil"
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(Brief note on the "messianic" eclogue.) |
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Three of Virgil's works are known to have been of note: | Three of Virgil's works are known to have been of note: | ||
| − | * ''Eclogues'' are pastoral poems about his own day. The fourth "Messianic" eclogue was perceived by some as fortelling the coming of Christ <ref> | + | * ''Eclogues'' are pastoral poems about his own day. The fourth "Messianic" eclogue was perceived by some as fortelling the coming of Christ <ref>http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/377185/Messianic-eclogue</ref>, ensuring that Virgil's works were well-read through the [[Middle Ages]] to the present. |
* ''Georgics'' is a didactic poem on farming, using the world of the farmer as a model for the world at large. | * ''Georgics'' is a didactic poem on farming, using the world of the farmer as a model for the world at large. | ||
* ''[[Aeneid]]'' was the work he spent the last decade of his life on. It was an epic [[poem]], the about the wanderings of [[Aeneas]] after the [[Trojan War]] and his travels to found the city Rome, which would one day become the Roman Empire. It is this work for which he is most known in history. | * ''[[Aeneid]]'' was the work he spent the last decade of his life on. It was an epic [[poem]], the about the wanderings of [[Aeneas]] after the [[Trojan War]] and his travels to found the city Rome, which would one day become the Roman Empire. It is this work for which he is most known in history. | ||
Revision as of 20:38, June 9, 2009
Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) lived from 70 to 19 BC. He was a well known and great Roman poet & philosopher who was born at Mantua in Italy and went to study in Cremona, Milan, and finally Rome. Maecenas was his patron (he paid for him to write and live) and he was friends with Octavian, the future first emperor of Rome.
Three of Virgil's works are known to have been of note:
- Eclogues are pastoral poems about his own day. The fourth "Messianic" eclogue was perceived by some as fortelling the coming of Christ [1], ensuring that Virgil's works were well-read through the Middle Ages to the present.
- Georgics is a didactic poem on farming, using the world of the farmer as a model for the world at large.
- Aeneid was the work he spent the last decade of his life on. It was an epic poem, the about the wanderings of Aeneas after the Trojan War and his travels to found the city Rome, which would one day become the Roman Empire. It is this work for which he is most known in history.
In Dante's classic The Divine Comedy, it is Virgil who as the noble pagan and symbol of wisdom who is the man to lead him through the lower levels of his journey, showing the respect that he still had in European culture over 1000 years after his death.
Sources
The New American Desk Encyclopedia, Penguin Group, 1989