Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Virgil's Georgics'

It locally contains or heaven, or hell; There’s no third place in’t. (Webster 1993) Husbandry in its original sense is a ‘being together’, based on dwelling in a particular place. There is an intricate connection between modern science and industrialised agriculture, both of which developed on the basis of particular values associated with Good Husbandry – those which focused on individual innovation, profit-related productivity, quantitative measurement, objective, ‘puritan’ truth and control of nature. Ideals of the earth as a ‘commonwealth’, and of traditional stewardship, were down-played. The writings of Francis Bacon provide an example of a positivist, pioneering attitude which has continued to underpin modern science. In retrospect, however, these ideals sound rather one-sided. Nature herself is not well represented in the modern science relationship. In this thesis, Virgil’s Georgics and Lucretius’ de rerum natura are used to derive a poetics of Being and of Husbandry, which applies not only to the world of poetry, but to events which underlie scientific research. Virgil’s use of verbs verifies that life’s activities are shared by all living things. Lucretius asserts that even inanimate atoms both exist in themselves and are creative. ‘To be’ can be visualised as a dynamic, balancing act between striving to stay in being and longing to engage creatively with another. The basis of this thesis is that a shaping of research towards good husbandry involves a fair relationship with nature, which in turn involves the acknowledgement in writing that nature is active, dynamic and a good collaborator. Husbandry defined as a continually unfolding third place between extremes or between self and other – this holistic, concentric definition – applies at all scales, all levels of experience. This work was derived from practice-led research involving the writing of poetry and therefore the findings exist in parallel as a sequence of poems.

In the final book of the Georgics, Virgil digresses into a nostalgic and regretful explanation of his inability to include a proper discussion of gardening because he is spatiis exclusus iniquis (147). Often deemed “the skeleton of a fifth book of the Georgics” the exact meaning and intent behind this passage is still largely contested. In this paper I will attempt to de-strange this passage by examining it philosophically and allegorically, particularly by means of numerical symbolism.

La scelta di studiare il Fiore delle Georgiche è motivata dallo spazio di approfondimento ancora aperto sull’attività di Quasimodo traduttore, soprattutto alla luce delle carte autografe custodite presso il Centro di ricerca sulla tradizione manoscritta di autori moderni e contemporanei dell’Università di Pavia. L’indagine rivela le motivazioni della decisione da parte del poeta siciliano di leggere il «Virgilio … mansuetus della Georgiche» e la presenza di cospicue affinità tematiche tra l’immaginario poetico quasimodiano e il poema latino, a partire dal grande tema della natura, cosmica e georgica insieme, e dalla presenza dei quattro elementi primordiali (aria, terra, fuoco, acqua) come parole-chiave dell’interpretazione del poeta. Altri motivi comuni sono: il mito dell’Eden, il binomio amore-morte e il mito di Orfeo. La versione di Quasimodo sul piano dei contenuti e dell’espressione rivela la tendenza ad attenuare i concetti maggiormente connotati dal punto di vista della cultura e del contesto storico augusteo. Il poeta traduttore crea un nuovo testo che, improntato ad accentuare la componente lirica rispetto a quella didascalica, trasmetta un messaggio universalmente valido e più vicino al lettore a lui contemporaneo. Lo studio delle carte autografe ha fugato qualunque dubbio sull’originalità dell’operazione quasimodiana e ha rivelato la serietà nell’approccio alla traduzione.
The decision to study the Fiore delle Georgiche derives from the research space still open over the activity of Quasimodo as a translator, above all in light of the autograph papers kept at the research center on manuscript tradition of modern and contemporary authors of Pavia’ University. The study reveals the reason for the decision of Quasimodo to read Virgilio as mansuetus poet of Georgics and the presence of many affinities of contents between the poetic imaginary of the Sicilian poet and the latin poem, starting from the great theme of nature, cosmic and georgic at the same time, and for the presence of the four primordial elements (air, earth, fire, water) as key words of the interpretation of the poet. Other common subjects are: the myth of Eden, the couple love-death and the myth of Orpheus. The version of Quasimodo from the point of view of contents and expression reveals the tendency to attenuate the concepts mainly characterized by culture and by the augusteus historical context. The translator poet creates a new text that, marked by a stronger lyrical component rather than didactic, sends a universally valid message and closer to his contemporary readers. The study of the autograph papers has dispelled any doubt over the novelty of the work by Quasimodo and has revealed the seriousness in the approach to the translation.

In this dissertation, I argue that two dominant perspectives on farming in Canada—the technoscientific capitalist perspective on modern industrial farming and the popular vision of hard-won survival on the family farm—both draw on narrative and aesthetic strategies that have deep roots in distinct, but related variations of the georgic tradition, which arrived in Canada in the eighteenth century and continues to shape literary representations and material practices today. Critics of Canadian literature have tended to subsume the georgic under the category of pastoral, but I argue that the georgic is a separate and more useful category for understanding the complex myths and realities of agricultural production in Canada precisely because it is a literary genre that focuses on the labour of farming and because it constitutes a complex and multi-generic discourse which both promotes and enables critique of dominant agricultural practices. I argue that, despite its sublimation beneath the pastoral, the georgic mode has also been an important cultural nexus in Canadian literature and culture, and that it constitutes a set of conventions that have become so commonplace in writing that deals with agricultural labour and its related issues in Canada that they have come to seem both inevitable and natural within the Canadian cultural tradition, even if they have not been explicitly named as georgic. By analyzing a variety of texts such as Oliver Goldmith’s The Rising Village, Isabella Valancy Crawford’s Malcolm’s Katie, Susanna Moodie’s Roughing It in the Bush, Frederick Philip Grove’s Settlers of the Marsh, Martha Ostenso’s Wild Geese, Al Purdy’s In Search of Owen Roblin, Robert Kroetsch’s “The Ledger,” Christian Bok’s Xenotext, Rita Wong’s Forage, and Phil Hall’s Amanuensis, I recontextualize Canadian writing that deals with agrarian work within two distinct but related georgic traditions. As Raymond Williams and others have shown, the georgic’s inclusion of both pastoralizing myths and material realities makes it useful for exploring ecological questions. The georgic is often understood in terms of what Karen O’Brien has called the imperial georgic mode, which involves a technocratic, imperialist, capitalist approach to agriculture, and which helped theorize and justify imperial expansion and the technological domination of nature. But as ecocritics like David Fairer, Margaret Ronda, and Kevin Goodman have argued, the georgic’s concern with the contingency and precariousness of human relationships with nonhuman systems also made it a productive site for imagining alternatives to imperial ways of organizing social and ecological relations. Ronda calls this more ecologically-focused and adaptable georgic the disenchanted georgic, but I call it the precarious georgic because of the way it enables engagement with what Anna Tsing calls precarity. Precarity, as Tsing explains, describes life without the promise of mastery or stability, which is a condition that leaves us in a state of being radically dependent on other beings for survival. “The challenge for thinking with precarity,” she writes, “is to understand the ways projects for making scalability have transformed landscape and society, while seeing also where scalability fails—and where nonscalable ecological and economic relations erupt” (42). By tracing the interplay between imperial and precarious georgic modes in Canadian texts that have mistakenly been read as pastoral—from Moodie’s settler georgic to the queer gothic georgic of Ostenso’s Wild Geese to the provisional and object-oriented georgics of Robert Kroetsch and Phil Hall—I argue that the precarious georgic strain has always engaged in this process of thinking with precarity, and that it holds the potential for providing space to re-imagine our ecological relations.

Vergil’s Georgics was published in 29 BCE, at a critical point in the political life of Octavian-Augustus. Although his position at the head of state had been confirmed by victory at Actium in 31, his longevity was threatened by his reputation for causing bloodshed during the civil wars. This thesis argues that Vergil, in the Georgics, presents a defence of Octavian against criticism of his past, in order to safeguard his future, and the future of Rome. Through a complex of metaphor and allusion, Vergil engages with the weaknesses in Octavian’s public image in order to diminish their damaging impact. Chapter One examines the way in which the poet invokes and complements the literary tradition of portraying young men as destructive, amorous creatures, through his depiction of iuvenes in the Georgics, in order to emphasise the inevitability of youthful misbehaviour. Since Octavian is still explicitly a iuvenis, he cannot be held accountable for his actions up to this point, including his role in the civil wars. The focus of Chapters Two and Three of this thesis is Vergil’s presentation of the spring season in the Georgics. Vergil’s preoccupation with spring is unorthodox in the context of agricultural didactic; under the influence of the Lucretian figure of Venus, Vergil moulds spring into a symbol of universal creation in nature, a metaphor for a projected revival of Roman affairs under Octavian’s leadership which would subsequently dominate the visual art of the Augustan period. Vergil’s spring is as concerned with the past as it is the future. Vergil stresses the fact that destructive activity can take place in spring, in the form of storms and animal violence; the farmer’s spring labor is characterised as a war against nature, which culminates in the horrific slaughter of oxen demanded by bugonia. In each case destruction is revealed as a necessary prerequisite for some form of creation: animal reproduction, increased crop yield, a renewed population of bees. Thus, the spring creation of a new Rome under Octavian will come as a direct result of the bloodshed of the civil wars, a cataclysm whose horrors are not denied, but whose outcome will ultimately be positive. Octavian is assimilated to Jupiter in his Stoic guise: a providential figure who sends fire and flood to Earth in order to improve mankind.

No presente trabalho, estudamos as relações passíveis de ser estabelecidas entre três obras à primeira vista muito diferentes: as Bucólicasde Virgílio, Paludesde André Gide e Manderre, de Georges Perec. Nosso objetivo é mostrar uma espécie de percurso potencial de um personagem, Títiro, por meiodos textose as transformações por ele sofridas. Por meio de uma análise que leva em consideração o ponto de vista intertextual, tentamos compreender a apropriação feita por cada um dos autores, e as implicações causadas pelos diferentes contextos literários nos quais o personagem se insere.
In this research, we study the relations that can be established between three works at first sight very different: Virgils Eclogues, André Gides Paludesand Georges Perec Manderre. Our aim is to show some sort of potential path followed by acharacter, Tityrus, through the textsand the transformations undergone by him. Through an analysis that considers an intertextual point of view, we try to understand the appropriation made by each author, and the implications caused by different literary contexts in which the character is inserted.

FundaÃÃo Cearense de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Cientifico e TecnolÃgico
Para a cultura clÃssica antiga, o gÃnero Ãpico parecia apresentar diferentes formas e possibilidades. à provÃvel que, para os antigos, o metro tenha sido o principal recurso para classificar os gÃneros literÃrios. Assim, um poema vertido em versos hexamÃtricos poderia ser de imediato identificado como um Ãpico. HÃ, contudo, diferenÃas entre os Ãpicos homÃricos e os hesiÃdicos, o que parece reforÃar a hipÃtese de o gÃnero Ãpico poder apresentar manifestaÃÃes distintas. Enquanto os Ãpicos homÃricos sÃo longos quanto à extensÃo e cantam feitos bÃlicos, os hesÃodicos sÃo breves e tÃm a preocupaÃÃo de transmitir um conhecimento. As GeÃrgicas, de VirgÃlio, filiam-se à composiÃÃo de tipo hesÃodico. Ainda que uma influÃncia helenÃstica seja percebida, o poema virgiliano segue caracterÃsticas de estrutura, forma e conteÃdo do Ãpico hesÃodico (que tambÃm pode ser chamado de Ãpos didÃtico); no entanto, em diversos passos parece exceder essas caracterÃsticas, deixando a impressÃo de que tambÃm manteria vÃnculos com a Ãpica homÃrica (ou com o chamado Ãpos heroico). Essa discussÃo sugere que a leitura do poema como didÃtico nÃo parece ser suficiente para sua classificaÃÃo de gÃnero, sugere tambÃm que o poema se insere numa espÃcie de progressÃo poÃtica que perfaz duas formas de Ãpos, o didÃtico e o heroico.
For the ancient classical culture, the epic genre seemed to have different shapes and possibilities. It is likely that, for the ancients, the meter has been the main resource for classifying literary genres. Thus, a poem composed into hexameter lines could be readily identified as an epic. However, there are differences between the Homeric and the Hesiodic epics which seem to reinforce the assumption that the epic genre could have different manifestations. While the Homeric epics are long as for the extent and sing the martial feats,the Hesiodic epics are brief and have the intent of transferring knowledge. The Virgilâs Georgics affiliated to the composition of Hesiodic type. Although a Hellenistic influence is perceived, the Virgilian poem follows characteristics of structure, shape and contents of the Hesiodic epic (which can also be called didactic epos). However, in several passages, the poem seems to exceed these characteristics, leaving the impression that also could maintain bonds to the Homeric epic (or the so-called heroic epos). This discussion suggests that the reading of the poem as didactic does not seem to be sufficient for the classification of genre, it also suggests that the poem is part of a kind of poetic progression that to goes through two forms of epos, heroic and didactic.

Virgil's Georgics portray peace and war as disparate states derived from the same fundamental materials. Adopting a didactic tone, the poet uses the language of farming to confront questions about the making of lasting peace in the wake of the Roman civil wars. Rife with subjunctive constructions, the Georgics place no hope in the easily realized peace of a golden age; instead, they teach us that peace must be sowed, tended, reaped, and replanted, year after year. Despite this profound engagement with the consequences of civil war, however, the Georgics have not often been studied in relation to English writers working after the civil wars of the 1640s. I propose that we can better understand poems by Andrew Marvell, John Dryden, Anne Finch, and John Philips--all of whom grappled with the ramifications of war--by reading their work in relation to the georgic peace of Virgil's poem. In distinct ways, these poets question the dominant myth of a renewed golden age; instead, they model peace as a stable yet contingent condition constructed from chaotic materials, and therefore in need of perpetual maintenance. This project contributes to existing debates on genre, classical translation, the relationships between early modern poetry and politics, and most importantly, poetic representations of political and social peace. Recent work has argued for the georgic as a flexible mode rather than a formal genre, yet scholars remain primarily interested in its relation to questions of British national identity, agricultural reform movements, and the production of knowledge in the middle and later decades of the eighteenth century. I argue, however, for the relevance of the georgic to earlier poems written in response to the consequences of the English civil wars. The dissertation includes chapters devoted separately to Marvell, Finch, and Dryden, and concludes with a chapter on how their dynamic conceptions of georgic peace both inform and conflict with aspects of the popular eighteenth-century genre of imitative georgic poetry initiated by Philips and brought to its height by James Thomson.
2017-05-01T00:00:00Z

SUmmaries in Afrikaans and English
Text in Afrikaans
Die oogmerk van hierdie verhandeling is om te wys op die tekstuele en visuele kontraste in Georgi con 11.1 - 108. Ten aanvang word 'n bree vergelyking getreftussen Georgicon I en II om sodoende die funksie asook die effek van Boek 2 in die viertal gedigte te bepaal. Vir 'n meer indringende ontleding word Boek 2, asook die relevante verse, skematies verdeel en alhoewel die panoramiese effek versteur word, kan die problematiek van hierdie gedig alleenlik s0 noukeuriger opgelos word. Daar word getoon dat Boek 2 in drie afdelings verdeel is met 'n laus-tema wat telkens as hoogtepunt dien vir elk van die dele. Ook die oorkoepelende tema van variatio-labor en die wisselwerking daarvan kan duideliker waargeneem word. Verse I - I 08 is didakties van aard en eenvoudige patrone word saamgestel uit alledaagse objekte en idees. Vergilius slaag daarin om vergelykings af te dwing en om kontras te bewerkstellig deur die skep van imagines. Hierdie beelde kom duideliker na vore deur 'n baie noukeurige analise van die teks en s6 word vorm, lyn, kleur en tekstuur beklemtoon en gekontrasteer. W anneer die fokus verskuif vanaf die natuur na die mens, word daar gewys op die kontras in verse 3 5 - 46 tussen die landbouers en die politieke magsfiguur van Maecenas. Die onderliggende felix I fortuna/us tema word s6 beklemtoon. Die problematiek van didaktisisme word aangespreek deur die effek van die kontrastering van parallelle passasies aan te toon. As Leitmotiv word telkens gewys op die tekstuele en visuele kontraste in die digter se keuse en rangskikking van 'n ryke verskeidenheid van borne - met spesifieke verwysing na hulle aard, voorkoms, herkoms en funksie.
The aim of this dissertation is to indicate the textual and visual contrasts in Georgi con TI.l - 108. In a broad comparison between Georgica I and II the function and the effect ofBook 2 within the framework of the four poems is determined. With a view to a more penetrating analysis, Book 2 as a whole and specifically lines 1 - 108 will be dealt with schematically. Although this puts the panoramic effect at risk, it is the only way in which the complexities of this poem can be successfully resolved. Book 2 is shown to have a tripartite structure, with a taustheme as the climax of each of the three divisions. The over-arching theme of reciprocating variatio- labor also comes to light more clearly. Lines I - I 08 are of a didactic nature, and simple patterns are shaped out of everyday objects and ideas. By creating imagines Vergil manages to enforce comparisons and to bring about contrasts. A meticulous analysis of the text highlights these images more clearly and in this manner the poet accentuates colour, form, line and texture. When the focus shifts from nature to man, the contrast between the farmers and the politically powerful Maecenas in lines 3 5 - 46 is brought to the fore to emphasize the underlying theme of felix I fortunatus. The problem of didacticism is addressed by focusing on the effect of the contrasts between parallel passages. The textual and visual contrasts in the poet's choice and marshalling of a rich variety of trees, with a particular reference to their nature, occurrence, provenance and function, serve as Leitmotif for the dissertation as a whole.
Classics and Modern European Languages
M.A. (Latyn)

This study explores the relationship between poetry and politics in Books 1 and 15 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Vergil had refashioned the concept of the golden age to better resonate with Roman values, and Ovid in turn responds to Vergil by making his own golden age free from law, seafaring, and warfare (Met. 1.89-112). Ovid’s golden age clearly foils his ‘praise’ of Augustus in Book 15 (819-70), and thus challenges Vergil’s innovations. Ovid closely connects his demiurge (opifex, 1.79), who created the conditions necessary for the existence of the golden age, to himself (15.871-9); they together display the potency of poetic power. Poesis is different than the power of empire, which is inherently destructive: Jupiter terminates the golden age (1.113), and Augustus’ accomplishments are only ostensibly ‘peaceful’ (15.823, 833). Ovid suggests that the power of poesis remains beyond the destructive reach of Augustus, since Rome’s power is limited to the post-golden, chaotic world, and that poesis enjoys the status of eternality which Rome and Augustus claimed to possess themselves.

Abstracts in Afrikaans and English
Aangesien die konsep van kleur vaag en abstrak is, verskil die ervaring én beskrywing daarvan van individu tot individu en van kultuur tot kultuur. Aldus word die waarneem van kleur dikwels ʼn persoonlike en subjektiewe ervaring. In die geval van historiese tale, egter, is die uitdaging om kleurbeskrywing korrek oor te dra, nie sielkundig of esteties van aard nie, maar kultureel, aangesien daar onderliggend aan hierdie tale ʼn unieke linguistiese sisteem gekoppel is. So byvoorbeeld moet die ontleding van Latynse kleurwoorde en die toewysing van relevante betekenismoontlikhede op ʼn besondere wyse aan die Afrikaanse idioom geanker word, sonder om die uniekheid van elk van hierdie tale in te boet. Dit is gevolglik die taak van die navorser om moderne wetenskaplike beskouings oor kleuraanwending met sensitiwiteit en oordeelkundig op die antieke kleursisteme toe te pas. Die bestudering van kleur en kleurgebruik in die Oudheid was vir ʼn lang tyd in omstredenheid gehul. Navorsing in hierdie verband het aanvanklik slegs op die tegniese en argeologiese aspekte van kleurproduksie en -gebruik in die Griekse en Romeinse kuns en argitektuur gefokus. Daarenteen is teoretiese kwessies oor die funksie van kleur in die non-tegniese, estetiese letterkunde selde aangespreek, veral weens die invloed van linguisties-semantiese en kleur-psiogologiese vraagstukke. In hierdie proefskrif val die kollig op Vergilius se keuse en aanwending van dié kleurterme wat beide eksplisiet en implisiet in die Georgica voorkom. Aangesien ʼn sinvolle analise van hierdie digter se kleurgebruik nie tot die Georgica beperk kan word nie, moet die ooreenstemmende terme nie net in sy Eclogae en Aeneïs nie, maar ook in die werke van sy voorgangers, die digters Lucretius en Catullus, betrek word. Uit ʼn beperkte omvang selekteer en gebruik Vergilius kleurwoorde met ʼn delikate presisie van betekenis. Hoewel die stelselmatige ontleding van hierdie terme se betekenismoontlikhede kontekstueel beperk is, toon hierdie benadering in watter mate Vergilius innoverend en verbeeldingryk voorkom. Hierdie inligting dien vervolgens as parateks vir die studie wat volg: Vergilius se gebruik van kleurterme deur die verloop van die vier boeke van die Georgica met die fokus op die letterkundige impak en literêre effekte wat deurgaans as ‘eg Vergiliaans’ beoordeel kan word. . Sou hierdie kleurterme geïgnoreer of net nie raakgelees word nie, kan die leser nie daarop aanspraak maak dat die Georgica waarlik verstaan word nie. Dit is dus die doel van hierdie navorsing om die leser toe te rus met middele tot die vind van ʼn dieper insig in en groter waardering vir hierdie werk as uitnemende poësie.
Since the concept of colour is vague and abstract, the perception of colour differs from individual to individual and from culture to culture to become a highly personal and subjective experience. In the case of historical languages, however, the description of colour is challenging. Conveying colour description correctly is not a psychological or aesthetic exercise, but cultural, as each language has a unique underlying linguistic sensitivity. Consequently, in this dissertation which is written in Afrikaans, the analysis of Latin colour words must be anchored to the Afrikaans idiom in such a unique way as not to detract from the differences in cultural feel between these two languages. Therefore, and in spite of obvious differences, it is the task of the researcher to apply modern scientific views discerningly and sensitively to any ancient colour system. The study of colour and its application in antiquity has long been controversial. Initially research on these aspects of Greek and Roman societies focused only on the technical and archaeological aspects of colour production and its application in their art and architecture. In the wide array of theories regarding linguistic-semantic issues, colour-psychology and also colour aesthetics, theoretical issues regarding the function of colour in non-technical (‘literary’) works were rarely addressed, This dissertation focuses on those colour terms which Vergil uses both explicitly and implicitly in the Georgica. A meaningful analysis of this poet's use of colour must of necessity also include the application of the corresponding terms in his Eclogae and Aeneid, as well as those in the works of his poetic predecessors, Lucretius and Catullus. Selected from a limited range, Vergil applies colour words with a delicate precision of meaning. Although the systematic analysis of these words indicates a range of meaning which can be contextually limited, this approach highlights Vergil’s innovative and imaginative use of colour. With these findings as basis the focus shifts to the consecutive use of colour terms throughout the four books to indicate extraordinary and innovative literary effects which can only be described as ‘thoroughly Vergilian’. If these colour strategies were to escape the reader’s attention, it would result in a poorer understanding of the poem. It is therefore the purpose of this research to equip readers with strategies that will lead to a greater appreciation of the Georgics as exceptional poetry.
Classics and World Languages
D. Litt. et Phil. (Klassieke Studies)