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Article: Georgics on my mind.(Virgil's Georgics)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- New Criterion
- Article date:
- June 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Foundation for Cultural Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Virgil's Georgics, translated by Janet Lembke. Yale University Press, 114 pages, $50
Translating Virgil these days is either eccentric or ... well, there really is no "or." It is eccentric. Virgil is the archetype for what were called in the heyday of the culture wars "Dead White European Males." After all, Publius Virgilius Maro was the author of the Aeneid, an explicitly pro-imperial epic that praised Roman arms and Rome's success in bringing law and civilization to the barbarians. Not the sort of thing, in other words, to garner support at an MLA meeting. Perhaps a new translation that emphasized Virgil's "ambiguous attitude" toward empire would be more ...