1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910781220803321

Autore

Thibodeau Philip (Philip J.), <1970->

Titolo

Playing the farmer [[electronic resource] ] : representations of rural life in Vergil's Georgics / / Philip Thibodeau

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2011

ISBN

1-283-27848-0

9786613278487

0-520-95025-9

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (335 p.)

Collana

Joan Palevsky imprint in classical literature

Disciplina

871/.01

Soggetti

Agriculture in literature

Didactic poetry, Latin - History and criticism

Epic poetry, Classical - History and criticism

Allusions

Rome In literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction -- Agricolae -- Playing the farmer -- Nobility in rustication -- A protreptic to agronomy -- To enchant readers -- The reception of the Georgics in early Imperial Rome -- Appendix 1. Vergil's economic status -- Appendix 2. Early readership of The georgics.

Sommario/riassunto

Playing the Farmer reinvigorates our understanding of Vergil's Georgics, a vibrant work written by Rome's premier epic poet shortly before he began the Aeneid. Setting the Georgics in the social context of its day, Philip Thibodeau for the first time connects the poem's idyllic, and idealized, portrait of rustic life and agriculture with changing attitudes toward the countryside in late Republican and early Imperial Rome. He argues that what has been seen as a straightforward poem about agriculture is in fact an enchanting work of fantasy that elevated, and sometimes whitewashed, the realities of country life. Drawing from a wide range of sources, Thibodeau shows how Vergil's poem reshaped agrarian ideals in its own time, and how it influenced Roman poets, philosophers, agronomists, and orators. Playing the



Farmer brings a fresh perspective to a work that was praised by Dryden as "the best poem by the best poet."