The Virgilian Tradition

This indispensable anthology gathers texts and translations that cover major aspects of the Virgilian tradition from the Roman poet’s own lifetime to the year 1500. Unprecedented in scope, the book presents a vast compendium of materials that illuminate how poets, teachers, students, and common folk responded to Virgil and his poetry. The volume offers a brief commentary on each text, many of which are translated into English for the first time.
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.

Michael C. J. Putnam is W. Duncan MacMillan II Professor of Classics, Emeritus, and Professor of Comparative Literature, Emeritus, Brown University. He is the author of Virgil’s Epic Designs and Horace’s “Carmen Saeculare,” published by Yale University Press. Jan M. Ziolkowski, author of more than a dozen books on medieval literature, is Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Medieval Latin at Harvard University.