Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Trinity College, Cambridge
Description based on print version record. - Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002
Part I, Prima ab origine. The old man of the sea ; Aristeia -- Part II, Mirabile dictu. Ox and paradox ; Poeta creatus -- Postscript. Sphragis -- Appendix I. Proteus and Prōteús [in Greek script] -- Appendix II. [Georgics and the Odyssey] 4.400 -- Appendix III. Sparsere per agros
"Current orthodoxy interprets the Georgics as a statement of profound ambivalence towards Octavian and his claim to be Rome's saviour after the catastrophe of the civil wars. This book takes issue with the model of the subtly subversive poet which has dominated scholarship for the last quarter of a century. It argues that in the turbulent political circumstances which obtained at the time of the poem's composition, Virgil's preoccupation with violent conflict has a highly optimistic import. Octavian's brutal conduct in the civil wars is subjected to a searching analysis, but is ultimately vindicated, refigured as a paradoxically constructive violence analogous to blood sacrifice or Romulus' fratricide of Remus, a prerequisite of the foundation of Rome
The vindication of Octavian also has strictly literary implications for Virgil. The close of the poem sees Virgil asserting his mastery of the Homeric mode of poetry, the most sublime available, and the providential world-view it was thought to embody."--BOOK JACKET.
