Virgil's Georgics
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman poet's celebration of agriculture and rural life composed in 29BC after a civil war, when questions of land ownership were contested.
In the year 29 BC the great Roman poet Virgil published these lines:
Blessed is he who has succeeded in learning the laws of nature’s working, has cast beneath his feet all fear and fate’s implacable decree, and the howl of insatiable Death. But happy too is he who knows the rural gods…
They’re from his poem the Georgics, a detailed account of farming life in the Italy of the time. ‘Georgics’ means ‘agricultural things’, and it’s often been read as a farming manual. But it was written at a moment when the Roman world was emerging from a period of civil war, and questions of land ownership and management were heavily contested. It’s also a philosophical reflection on humanity’s relationship with the natural world, the ravages of time, and the politics of ³Õ¾±°ù²µ¾±±ô’s day.
It’s exerted a profound influence on European writing about agriculture and rural life, and has much to offer environmental thinking today.
With
Katharine Earnshaw
Senior Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter;
Neville Morley
Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter
and
Diana Spencer
Professor of Classics at the University of Birmingham
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Last on
More episodes
Previous
Links and further reading
CONTRIBUTORS
at the University of Exeter
at the University of Exeter
at the University of Birmingham
Ìý
READING LIST
Paul Erdkamp, Koenraad Verboven and Arjan Zuiderhoek (eds.), Ownership and Exploitation of Land and Natural Resources in the Roman World (Oxford University Press, 2015), especially 'The nature of the villa economy' by Alessandro Launaro
P. Hardie, Virgil: Greece and Rome New Surveys in the Classics (Oxford University Press, 1998)Ìý
S.J.Harrison, ‘Vergil and the Mausoleum Augusti: Georgics 3.12-18’ (Acta Classica 48, 2005)
Leah Kronenberg, Allegories of Farming from Greece and Rome: Philosophical Satire in Xenophon, Varro and Virgil (Cambridge University Press, 2009)
David Mebans, ‘Temple Buiding, Primus Language, and the Proem to Vergil’s Third Georgic’ (Classical Philology 103, 2008)Ìý
Grant A. Nelsestuen, Varro the Agronomist: Political Philosophy, Satire and Agriculture in the Late Republic (Ohio State University Press, 2015)
Saskia T. Roselaar, Italy's Economic Revolution: Integration and Economy in Republican Italy (Oxford University Press, 2019)
Philip Thibodeau, Playing the Farmer: Representations of Rural Life in Vergil's Georgics (University of California Press, 2011)
Jethro Tull, Horse-Hoeing Husbandry: or, An Essay On The Principles of Vegetation and Tillage. Designed To Introduce A New Method of Culture, Whereby The Produce of The Land Be Increased (Gale ECCO, Print Editions, 2010)
Virgil (trans. John Dryden), The works of Virgil containing his Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis (3 volumes, Nabu Press or Wentworth Press, 2012-19)
Virgil (trans. Peter Fallon), The Georgics (Oxford University Press, 2009)]
Virgil (trans. Janet Lembke), Virgil‘s Georgics: A New Verse Translation (Yale University Press, 2007)
Leendert Weeda, Vergil´s Political Commentary in the Eclogues, Georgics and Aeneid (De Gruyter Open Poland, 2015)
Bobby Xinyue and Nicholas Freer (eds.), Reflections and New Perspectives on Virgil's Georgics (Bloomsbury, 2019)
RELATED LINKS
Ìý
Ìý
Ìý
Broadcasts
- Thu 18 May 2023 09:00Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 4
- Thu 18 May 2023 21:30Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 4
Featured in...
![]()
Ancient Rome—In Our Time
Browse the Ancient Rome era within the In Our Time archive.
![]()
Culture—In Our Time
Popular culture, poetry, music and visual arts and the roles they play in our society.
In Our Time podcasts
Download programmes from the huge In Our Time archive.
The In Our Time Listeners' Top 10
If you’re new to In Our Time, this is a good place to start.
Arts and Ideas podcast
Download the best of Radio 3's Free Thinking programme.
Podcast
-
![]()
In Our Time
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.
