The Virgilian Tradition
The First Fifteen Hundred Years
Edited by Jan M. Ziolkowski and Michael C. J. Putnam

March 11, 2008
1128 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
5 b/w, 2 color
ISBN: 9780300108224
Cloth
Out of Print
The book begins with a chronological survey of Virgil’s influence upon writers from Augustan Rome to Renaissance Italy. There follow detailed reviews of biographies of Virgil, of how his writings were received and used, and of how the poet was envisaged and explained through the centuries. The final section focuses on the tradition of legends associated with Virgil.
“Two thousand years after the death of its author, Virgil’s poetry occupies a central place in the canon of Western literature. The number of responses to Virgil, however, has discouraged anyone from attempting to collect them, sift out the most important, and organize the selections in an intelligible manner. This is the job Putnam and Ziolkowski have undertaken, and they have succeeded admirably.”—Craig Kallendorf, Texas A & M University
“This wonderful project brings together a truly generous sampling of text and translations that document the tradition of Virgil reception. There are no comparable collections of sources, much less sources with translations into English.”—Ralph J. Hexter, President, Hampshire College