Already acclaimed in his lifetime as a classic author, Virgil rapidly replacedEnnius and other earlier authors as a standard school text, and stood as the most popular Latin poet through late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and early modernity, exerting major influence onWestern literature.Geoffrey Chaucer assigned Virgil a uniquely prominent position in history inThe House of Fame (1374–85), describing him as standingon a pilere / that was of tinned yren clere ("on a pillar that was of bright tin-plated iron"), and in theDivine Comedy, in which Virgil appears as the author's guide throughHell andPurgatory,Dante pays tribute to Virgil with the wordstu se' solo colui da cu'io tolsi / lo bello stile che m'ha fatto onore (Inf. I.86–7) ("thou art alone the one from whom I took the beautiful style that has done honour to me"). In the 20th Century,T. S. Eliot famously began a lecture on the subject "What Is a Classic?" by asserting as self-evidently true that "whatever the definition we arrive at, it cannot be one which excludes Virgil – we may say confidently that it must be one which will expressly reckon with him."[1]
Biographical information about Virgil is transmitted chiefly invitae ("lives") of the poet, prefixed to commentaries on his work byProbus,Donatus, andServius. The life given by Donatus is considered to closely reproduce the life of Virgil from a lost work ofSuetonius on the lives of famous authors, just as Donatus used it for the poet's life in his commentary onTerence, where Suetonius is explicitly credited.[2][3] The far shorter life given by Servius likewise seems to be an abridgement of Suetonius except for one or two statements.[4]Varius is said to have written a memoir of his friend Virgil, and Suetonius likely drew on this lost work and other sources contemporary with the poet.[5] A life written in verse by the grammarian Phocas (probably active in the 4th to 5th centuries AD) differs in some details from Donatus and Servius.[3]Henry Nettleship believed the life attributed to Probus may have drawn independently from the same sources as Suetonius,[4] but it is attributed by other authorities to an anonymous author of the 5th or 6th century AD who drew on Donatus, Servius, and Phocas.[3] The Servian life was the principal source of Virgil's biography for medieval readers, while the Donatian life enjoyed a more limited circulation, and the lives of Phocas and Probus remained largely unknown.[3]
Modern bust of Virgil at the entrance to his crypt inNaples
Although the commentaries record much factual information about Virgil, some of their evidence can be shown to rely on allegorizing and on inferences drawn from his poetry. For this reason, details regarding Virgil's life story are considered somewhat problematic.[6]: 1602
According to the ancientvitae, Publius Vergilius Maro was born on theIdes of October during theconsulship ofPompey andCrassus (15 October 70 BC) in the village of Andes, nearMantua inCisalpine Gaul (northern Italy, added toItaly proper during his lifetime).[7][8][9] The Donatian life reports that some say Virgil's father was a potter, but most say he was an employee of anapparitor named Magius, whose daughter he married.[8] According to Phocas and Probus, the name of Virgil's mother wasMagia Polla.[10][9] Thecognomen of Virgil's maternal family,Magius, and failure to distinguish the genitive form of this rare name (Magi) in Servius' life, from the genitivemagi of the nounmagus ("magician"), probably contributed to the rise of the medieval legend that Virgil's father was employed by a certain itinerant magician, and that Virgil was a magician.[11][12]
Analysis of his name has led some to believe he descended from earlier Roman colonists. Modern speculation is not supported by narrative evidence from his writings or later biographers.
A tradition of obscure origin, which was accepted by Dante,[13] identifies Andes with modernPietole, two or three miles southeast of Mantua.[14] The ancient biography attributed toProbus records that Andes was thirtyRoman miles (about 45 kilometres or 28 miles) from Mantua.[15][12][9] There are eight or nine references to thegens to which Vergil belonged,gens Vergilia, in inscriptions from Northern Italy. Out of these, four are from townships remote from Mantua, three appear in inscriptions fromVerona, and one in an inscription fromCalvisano, avotive offering to theMatronae (a group of deities) by a woman called Vergilia, asking the goddesses to deliver from danger another woman, called Munatia.[16] A tomb erected by a member of thegens Magia, to which Virgil's mother belonged, is found atCasalpoglio, just 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) from Calvisano. In 1915, G. E. K. Braunholtz drew attention to the proximity of these inscriptions to each other, and the fact that Calvisano is exactly 30 Roman miles from Mantua,[17] which ledRobert Seymour Conway to theorize that these inscriptions have to do with relatives of Virgil, and Calvisano orCarpenedolo, not Pietole, is the site of Andes.[18]E. K. Rand defended the traditional site at Pietole, noting thatEgnazio's 1507 edition of Probus's commentary, supposedly based on a "very ancient codex" fromBobbio Abbey which can no longer be found, says that Andes was three miles from Mantua, and arguing this is the correct reading.[19] Conway replied that Egnazio's manuscript cannot be trusted to have been as ancient as Egnazio claimed it was, nor can we be sure that the reading "three" is not Egnazio's conjectural correction of his manuscript to harmonize it with the Pietole tradition, and all other evidence strongly favours the unanimous reading of the other witnesses of "thirty miles."[20] Other studies[21] claim that today's consideration for ancientAndes should be sought in the Casalpoglio area ofCastel Goffredo.[22]
By the fourth or fifth century AD the original spellingVergilius had been changed toVirgilius, and the latter spelling spread to modern European languages.[23] This latter spelling persisted even though, as early as the 15th century, the classical scholarPoliziano had shownVergilius to be the original spelling.[24] Today, theanglicisationsVergil andVirgil are both considered acceptable.[25]
There is speculation that the spellingVirgilius might have arisen due to a pun, sincevirg- carries an echo of the Latin word for "wand" (uirga), Virgil being particularly associated with magic in theMiddle Ages. There is also a possibility thatvirg- is meant to evoke the Latinvirgo ("virgin"); this would be a reference to thefourthEclogue, which has a history of Christian, and specificallyMessianic,interpretations.[i]
Virgil spent his boyhood inCremona until his 15th year (55 BC), when he is said to have received thetoga virilis on the very dayLucretius died.[26] From Cremona, he moved to Milan, and shortly afterwards to Rome.[26] After briefly considering a career inrhetoric and law, Virgil turned his talents to poetry.[27] Despite the biographers' statements that Virgil's family was of modest means, these accounts of his education, as well as of his ceremonial assumption of thetoga virilis, suggest his father was a wealthyequestrian landowner.[28]
He is said to have been tall and stout, with a swarthy complexion and a rustic appearance.[26] Virgil seems to have suffered bad health throughout his life and in some ways lived the life of an invalid. Schoolmates considered Virgil shy and reserved, and he was nicknamed "Parthenias" ("virgin") because of his aloofness.
The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began the hexameterEclogues (orBucolics) in 42 BC and it is thought the collection was published around 39–38 BC, although this is controversial.[6]: 1602 After defeating the army led by theassassins ofJulius Caesar in theBattle of Philippi (42 BC),Octavian tried to pay off his veterans with land expropriated from towns in northern Italy, which—according to tradition—included an estate near Mantua belonging to Virgil. The loss of Virgil's family farm and the attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property, were seen as his motives in the composition of theEclogues. This is now thought to be an unsupported inference from interpretations of theEclogues. InEclogues 1 and 9, Virgil indeed dramatizes the contrasting feelings caused by the brutality of the land expropriations through pastoral idiom, but offers no indisputable evidence of the supposed biographic incident.[29]
Sometime after the publication of theEclogues, probably before 37 BC,[6]: 1603 Virgil became part of the circle ofGaius Maecenas, Octavian's capable political adviser, who sought to counter sympathy for Antony among the leading families by rallying Roman literary figures to Octavian's side. Virgil came to know many other leading literary figures of the time, includingHorace, in whose poetry he is often mentioned,[30] andVarius Rufus, who later helped finish theAeneid. At Maecenas's insistence, according to the tradition, Virgil spent the ensuing years (perhaps 37–29 BC) on the longdactylic hexameter poem called theGeorgics (from Greek, "On Working the Earth"), which he dedicated to Maecenas.
Virgil worked on theAeneid during the last eleven years of his life (29–19 BC), commissioned, according toPropertius, byAugustus.[31] According to the tradition, Virgil traveled to thesenatorial province ofAchaea in Greece, in about 19 BC, to revise theAeneid. After meeting Augustus in Athens and deciding to return home, Virgil caught a fever while visiting a town nearMegara. After crossing to Italy by ship, weakened with disease, Virgil died inApulia on 21 September 19 BC. Augustus ordered Virgil's literary executors,Lucius Varius Rufus andPlotius Tucca, to disregard Virgil's wishthat the poem be burned, instead ordering it to be published with as few editorial changes as possible.[32]: 112
After his death atBrundisium according to Donatus,[33] orTaranto according to late manuscripts of Servius,[34] Virgil's remains were transported toNaples, where his tomb was engraved with an epitaph he had composed:Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere; tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces;[33][34] "Mantua gave me life, theCalabrians took it away, Naples holds me now; I sang of pastures, farms, and commanders." (transl.Bernard Knox)Martial reports thatSilius Italicus annexed the site to his estate (11.48, 11.50), andPliny the Younger says that Silius "would visit Virgil's tomb as if it were a temple" (Epistulae 3.7.8).[35]
The structure known as Virgil's tomb is found at the entrance of an ancient Roman tunnel (grotta vecchia) inPiedigrotta, a district 1.9 mi (3 km) from the centre of Naples, near theMergellina harbour, on the road heading north along the coast toPozzuoli. While Virgil was already the object of literary admiration and veneration before his death, in the Middle Ages his name became associated with miraculous powers, and for a couple of centuries his tomb was the destination ofpilgrimages and veneration.[36] A famous medieval legend thatPaul the Apostle had visited Virgil's tomb and wept that so great a poet had died without the Christian faith is referenced in a liturgical hymn said to have been used on Paul's feast day at Mantua:[37]
Ad Maronis mausoleum Ductus, fudit super eum Piæ rorem lacrymæ; Quem te, inquit, reddidissem, Si te vivum invenissem, Poetarum maxime!
When to Maro's tomb they brought him, Tender grief and pity wrought him To bedew the stone with tears; "What a saint I might have crowned thee Had I only living found thee, Poet first and without peers!"
However,Johann Friedrich Heinrich Schlosser was unable to find a manuscript of this hymn, and reported that he had only heard these verses recited from memory by a brother who had lived at Mantua.[38][39]
Through the nineteenth century, the supposed tomb attracted travellers on theGrand Tour, and still draws visitors.[35]
According to the commentators, Virgil received his first education when he was five and later went toCremona,Milan, and finallyRome to studyrhetoric,medicine, andastronomy, which he would abandon for philosophy. From Virgil's admiring references to theneoteric writersAsinius Pollio andCinna, it has been inferred that he was, for a time, associated withCatullus's neoteric circle. According to theCatalepton, he began to write poetry while in theEpicurean school ofSiro in Naples. A group of small works attributed to the youthful Virgil by the commentators survive collected under the titleAppendix Vergiliana, but are considered spurious by scholars. One, theCatalepton, consists of fourteen short poems,[6]: 1602 some of which may be Virgil's, and a short narrative poemCulex ("The Gnat"), was attributed to Virgil as early as the 1st century AD.
Page from the beginning of theEclogues in the 5th-centuryVergilius Romanus
TheEclogues (from the Greek for "selections") are a group of ten poems roughly modeled on thebucolic ("pastoral" or "rural") poetry of the Hellenistic poetTheocritus, which were written indactylic hexameter. While some readers have identified Virgil with various characters and their vicissitudes, whether gratitude by an old rustic to a new god (Ecl. 1), frustrated love by a rustic singer for a distant boy (his master's pet,Ecl. 2), or a master singer's claim to have composed several eclogues (Ecl. 5), modern scholars largely reject such efforts to garner biographical details from fiction, preferring to interpret an author's characters and themes as illustrations of contemporary life and thought.
The tenEclogues present traditional pastoral themes with a fresh perspective. Eclogues 1 and 9 address the land confiscations and their effects on the Italian countryside. 2 and 3 are pastoral and erotic, discussing homosexual love (Ecl. 2) and attraction toward people of any gender (Ecl. 3).Eclogue 4, addressed toAsinius Pollio, the so-called "Messianic Eclogue", uses the imagery of the golden age in connection with the birth of a child (the child's identity has been debated). 5 and 8 describe the myth ofDaphnis in a song contest, 6, the cosmic and mythological song ofSilenus; 7, a heated poetic contest, and 10 the sufferings of the contemporary elegiac poetCornelius Gallus. Virgil in hisEclogues is credited with establishingArcadia as a poetic ideal that still resonates in literature and visual arts[40] and with setting the stage for the development of Latin pastoral byCalpurnius Siculus,Nemesianus and later writers.
The ostensible theme of theGeorgics is instruction in the methods of running a farm. In handling this, Virgil follows in thedidactic ("how to") tradition of the Greek poetHesiod'sWorks and Days and works of the later Hellenistic poets. The four books of theGeorgics focus respectively on:
Well-known passages include the belovedLaus Italiae of Book 2, the prologue description of the temple in Book 3, and the description of the plague at the end of Book 3. Book 4 concludes with a long mythological narrative, in the form of anepyllion, which describes vividly the discovery of beekeeping byAristaeus, and the story ofOrpheus' journey to the underworld. Ancient scholars, such as Servius, conjectured that the Aristaeus episode replaced, at the emperor's request, a long section in praise of Virgil's friend, the poet Gallus, who was disgraced by Augustus, and committed suicide in 26 BC.[42]
The tone of theGeorgics wavers between optimism and pessimism, sparking critical debate on the poet's intentions,[6]: 1605 but the work lays the foundations for later didactic poetry. Virgil and Maecenas are said to have taken turns reading theGeorgics to Octavian upon his return from defeating Antony andCleopatra at theBattle of Actium in 31 BC.
TheAeneid is widely considered Virgil's finest work, and one of the most important poems in the history of literature (T. S. Eliot referred to it as "the classic of all Europe").[43] The work, modelled afterHomer'sIliad andOdyssey, chronicles the journey of a warrior and refugee of theTrojan War, namedAeneas, as he struggles to fulfill his destiny. After fleeing the sack of Troy, he travels to Italy, where he battles withTurnus, and his descendantsRomulus and Remus found the city of Rome.
A 1st-century terracotta expressing thepietas of Aeneas, who carries his aged father and leads his young son
The epic poem consists of 12 books indactylic hexameter verse. TheAeneid's first six books describe the journey of Aeneas from Troy to Rome. Virgil made use of several models in the composition of his epic;[6]: 1603 Homer, the pre-eminent author of classical epic, is everywhere present, but Virgil also makes special use of the Latin poetEnnius and the Hellenistic poetApollonius of Rhodes, among other writers to whom he alludes. Although theAeneid casts itself firmly into the epic mode, it often expands the genre by including elements of other genres, such as tragedy and aetiological poetry. Ancient commentators noted that Virgil seems to divide theAeneid into two sections based on the poetry of Homer; the first six books were viewed as employing theOdyssey as a model while the last six were connected to theIliad.[44]
Book 1,[ii] at the head of the Odyssean section, opens with a storm whichJuno, Aeneas's enemy throughout the poem, stirs up against the fleet. The storm drives the hero to the coast ofCarthage, which was Rome's deadliest foe. The queen,Dido, welcomes the ancestor of the Romans, and under the influence of the gods falls deeply in love with him. At a banquet in Book 2, Aeneas tells the story of the sack ofTroy, the death of his wife, and his escape, to the enthralled Carthaginians, while in Book 3 he recounts to them his wanderings over the Mediterranean in search of a suitable new home.Jupiter in Book 4 recalls the lingering Aeneas to his duty to found a new city, and he slips away from Carthage, leaving Dido to commit suicide, cursing Aeneas and calling down revenge in symbolic anticipation of the fierce wars between Carthage and Rome. In Book 5, funeral games are celebrated for Aeneas's fatherAnchises, who had died a year before. On reachingCumae, in Italy in Book 6, Aeneas consults theCumaean Sibyl, who conducts him through theUnderworld where Aeneas meets the dead Anchises who reveals Rome's destiny to his son.[45]
Book 7, beginning the Iliadic half, opens with an address to the muse and recounts Aeneas's arrival in Italy and betrothal toLavinia, daughter of KingLatinus. Lavinia had already been promised toTurnus, the king of theRutulians, who is roused to war by theFuryAllecto andAmata, Lavinia's mother. In Book 8, Aeneas allies withKing Evander, who occupies the future site of Rome, and is given new armor and a shield depicting Roman history. Book 9 records an assault byNisus and Euryalus on the Rutulians; Book 10, the death of Evander's young sonPallas; and 11 the death of the Volscian warrior princessCamilla and the decision to settle the war with a duel between Aeneas and Turnus. TheAeneid ends in Book 12 with the taking of Latinus's city, the death of Amata, and Aeneas's defeat and killing of Turnus, whose pleas for mercy are spurned. The final book ends with the image of Turnus's soul lamenting as it flees to the underworld.
Virgil Reading the Aeneidto Augustus, Octavia, and Livia byJean-Baptiste Wicar, Art Institute of Chicago
Critics of theAeneid focus on a variety of issues.[iii] The tone as a whole is a particular matter of debate; some see the poem as ultimately pessimistic and politically subversive to the Augustan regime, while others view it as a celebration of the new imperial dynasty. Virgil makes use of the symbolism of the regime, and some scholars see strong associations between Augustus and Aeneas, the one as founder and the other as re-founder of Rome. A strongteleology, or drive towards a climax, has been detected. TheAeneid is full of prophecies about the future of Rome, the deeds of Augustus, his ancestors, and famous Romans, and theCarthaginian Wars; the shield of Aeneas even depicts Augustus's victory atActium againstMark Antony andCleopatra in 31 BC. A further focus of study is the character of Aeneas. As the protagonist, Aeneas seems to waver constantly between his emotions and commitment to his prophetic duty to found Rome; critics note the breakdown of Aeneas's emotional control in the last sections of the poem where the "pious" and "righteous" Aeneas mercilessly slaughters Turnus.
TheAeneid appears to have been a great success. Virgil is said to have recited Books 2, 4, and 6 to Augustus;[6]: 1603 and Book 6 apparently caused the emperor's sisterOctavia to faint. Although the truth of this claim is subject to scholarly skepticism, it has served as a basis for art, such asJean-Baptiste Wicar'sVirgil Reading the Aeneid.
Some lines of the poem were left unfinished, and the whole was unedited, at Virgil's death in 19 BC. As a result, the text of theAeneid that exists may contain faults which Virgil was planning to correct before publication. However, the only obvious imperfections are a few lines of verse that are metrically unfinished, i.e. not a complete line ofdactylic hexameter. Some scholars have argued that Virgil deliberately left these incomplete for dramatic effect.[46] Other alleged imperfections are subject to debate.
The works of Virgil, almost from the moment of their publication, revolutionizedLatin poetry. TheEclogues,Georgics, and above all theAeneid became standard texts in school curricula with which all educated Romans were familiar. Poets following Virgil often refer intertextually to his works to generate meaning in their poetry. The Augustan poetOvid parodies the opening lines of theAeneid inAmores 1.1.1–2, and his summary of the Aeneas story in Book 14 of theMetamorphoses, the so-called "mini-Aeneid", has been viewed as an important example of post-Virgilian response to the epic genre.Lucan's epic, theBellum Civile, has been considered an anti-Virgilian epic, disposing of the divine mechanism, treating historical events, and diverging from Virgilian epic practice. The Flavian-era poetStatius in his 12-book epicThebaid engages closely with the poetry of Virgil; in his epilogue he advises his poem not to "rival the divineAeneid, but follow afar and ever venerate its footsteps."[47] Virgil finds one of his most ardent admirers inSilius Italicus. With almost every line of his epicPunica, Silius references Virgil.
Virgil also found commentators in antiquity.Servius, a commentator of the 4th century AD, based his work on the commentary ofDonatus. Servius's commentary provides us with a great deal of information about Virgil's life, sources, and references; however, many modern scholars find the variable quality of his work and the often simplistic interpretations frustrating.
The verse inscription at Virgil's tomb was supposedly composed by the poet himself:Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces. ("Mantua gave me life, theCalabrians took it away,Naples holds me now; I sang of pastures, farms, and commanders" [transl.Bernard Knox])
Even as the Western Roman Empire collapsed, literate men acknowledged that Virgil was a master poet;Augustine of Hippo confessed how he had wept at reading the death of Dido.[48] The best-known surviving manuscripts of Virgil's works include manuscripts from late antiquity, such as theVergilius Augusteus, theVergilius Vaticanus and theVergilius Romanus.
Gregory of Tours read Virgil, whom he quotes in several places, along with other Latin poets, though he cautions that "we ought not to relate their lying fables, lest we fall under sentence of eternal death".[49] In theRenaissance of the 12th century,Alexander Neckham placed the "divine"Aeneid on his standard arts curriculum,[50] and Dido became the romantic heroine of the age.[51] Monks likeMaiolus of Cluny might repudiate what they called "the luxurious eloquence of Virgil",[52] but they could not deny the power of his appeal.
The Renaissance saw several authors inspired to write epic in Virgil's wake:Edmund Spenser called himself the English Virgil;Paradise Lost was influenced by theAeneid; and later artists influenced includeBerlioz andHermann Broch.[54]
The legend of "Virgil in his basket" arose in theMiddle Ages, and is often seen in art and mentioned in literature as part of thePower of Womenliterary topos, demonstrating the disruptive force of female attractiveness on men. In this story Virgil became enamoured of a beautiful woman, sometimes described as the emperor's daughter or mistress and called Lucretia. She played him along and agreed to an assignation at her house, which he was to sneak into at night, by climbing into a large basket let down from a window. When he did so he was hoisted only halfway up the wall and left trapped there into the next day, exposed to public ridicule. The story paralleled that ofPhyllis riding Aristotle. Among other artists depicting the scene,Lucas van Leyden made awoodcut and later anengraving.[55]
Partially as a result of his so-called "Messianic"Eclogue 4 – interpreted from the 3rd century by Christian thinkers to have predicted thebirth of Jesus – Virgil was in later antiquity imputed to have the magical abilities of a seer. Eclogue 4 describes the birth of a boy ushering in a golden age. In consequence, Virgil came to be seen on a similar level to the Hebrewprophets of the Bible as one who had heralded Christianity.[56]The Jewish Encyclopedia argues that medieval legends about thegolem may have been inspired by Virgilian legends about the poet's apocryphal power to bring inanimate objects to life.[57]
Possibly as early as the second century AD, and into the Middle Ages, Virgil's works were seen as having magical properties and used fordivination. In what became known as theSortes Vergilianae ("Virgilian Lots"), passages would be selected at random and interpreted to answer questions.[58] In a similar vein, Macrobius in theSaturnalia credits the work of Virgil as the embodiment of human knowledge and experience, mirroring the Greek conception of Homer.[6]: 1603 In the 12th century, starting aroundNaples but eventually spreading throughout Europe, a tradition developed in which Virgil was regarded as a greatmagician. Legends about Virgil and his magical powers remained popular for over two hundred years, arguably becoming as prominent as his writings.[58] In medievalWales, the Welsh version of his name,Fferyllt orPheryllt, became a generic term for magic-worker, and survives in its word for pharmacist,fferyllydd.[59]
^Eliot, T. S. "What Is a Classic?". In Chinitz, David E.; Schuchard, Ronald (eds.).The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical Edition. Vol. 6: The War Years,1940–1946. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 669–687.
^Nardoni, Davide (1986). "La terra di Virgilio".Archeologia Viva (in Italian) (January–February ed.). pp. 71–76.
^Gualtierotti, Piero (2008).Castel Goffredo dalle origini ai Gonzaga (in Italian). Mantua: Banca di credito cooperativo di Castel Goffredo. pp. 96–100.
Farrell, J. 1991.Vergil's Georgics and the Traditions of Ancient Epic: The Art of Allusion in Literary History. New York:Oxford University Press.
—2001. "The Vergilian Century."Vergilius (1959–) 47:11–28.JSTOR41587251.
Farrell, J., and Michael C. J. Putnam, eds. 2010.A Companion to Vergil's Aeneid and Its Tradition, (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World). Chichester, MA:Wiley-Blackwell.
Fletcher, K. F. B. 2014.Finding Italy: Travel, Nation and Colonization in Vergil's 'Aeneid'. Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press.
Hardie, Philip R., ed. 1999.Virgil: Critical Assessments of Ancient Authors 1–4. New York:Routledge.
Horsfall, N. 2016.The Epic Distilled: Studies in the Composition of the Aeneid. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Keith, Alison; Myers, Micah Y. (2023).Vergil and Elegy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.ISBN9781487547950.
Mack, S. 1978.Patterns of Time in Vergil. Hamden: Archon Books.
Panoussi, V. 2009.Greek Tragedy in Vergil's "Aeneid": Ritual, Empire, and Intertext. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Quinn, S., ed. 2000.Why Vergil? A Collection of Interpretations. Wauconda: Bolchazy-Carducci.
Rossi, A. 2004.Contexts of War: Manipulation of Genre in Virgilian Battle Narrative. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Sondrup, Steven P. 2009. "Virgil: From Farms to Empire: Kierkegaard's Understanding of a Roman Poet." InKierkegaard and the Roman World, edited by J. B. Stewart. Farnham:Ashgate.
Syed, Y. 2005.Vergil's Aeneid and the Roman Self: Subject and Nation in Literary Discourse. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
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