Virgil on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius and the Didactic Tradition

by Monica R. Gale

Virgil's agricultural poem, the Georgics, forms part of a long tradition of didactic epic going back to the archaic poet Hesiod. This book explores the relationship between the Georgics and earlier works in the didactic tradition, particularly Lucretius' De Rerum Natura ("On the Nature of Things"). It is the first comprehensive study of Virgil's use of Lucretian themes, imagery, ideas and language; it also proposes a new reading of the poem as a whole, as a confrontation between the Epicurean philosophy of Lucretius and the opposing world views of his predecessors.

336 pages, Paperback

First published November 8, 1996

Reviews

[Reading Through the Lists · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Georgics for the first time this year and knew I was only scratching the surface of the text. On the surface, it’s a poem about farming…but it’s not really a poem about farming. Reading Gale’s monograph confirmed that there are many, many layers of depth to the poem, many contradictory ideas and theories about the world all jostling against each other like Lucretius’ warring atoms: “the Georgics finally presents the reader with more questions than answers” (274).

Virgil on the Nature of Things puts Virgil in dialogue with other writers in the didactic tradition, particularly Hesiod, Aratus, and (above all) Lucretius. If I have one criticism of the book, it would be the predominance of the Lucretian comparisons--Gale’s area of study is centered around Lucretius, so this is perhaps not surprising, but nevertheless I would have liked to see a more in-depth comparison of, say, Virgil and Hesiod.

Still, Virgil on the Nature of Things brought out a myriad of elements in Georgics I had not perceived the first time. When next I read the poem I will be, like Virgil’s farmer, well-armed to till the soil for new meaning and appreciation.

5 stars.