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Poetic Self-Consciousness in Georgics II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Frances Muecke
Frances Muecke*
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Extract

In contrast to heroic epic and Homer's silence about himself, didactic epos was self-conscious right from the beginning, for Hesiod named himself and described his poetic consecration by the Muses in the proem to the Theogony (22-34). It was not usual for Greek poets to dwell upon their role as poets, and Pindar's attention to this theme makes him a notable exception. With Roman poets things were different, since the conditions under which Latin literature came into being forced upon its exponents an awareness of creating in a context, as part of a tradition in which much had already been accomplished. Accordingly, Ennius did not preserve Homeric anonymity, but actually claimed to be Homer reborn, and possibly added, as well, a ‘Hesiodic’ meeting with the Muses. Moreover, he did not hesitate to criticize his Latin predecessors and to point out how he differed from them. In turn, his successor in the hexameter, Lucretius, felt the need to situate himself in the tradition by acknowledging poetic descent from Ennius, as well as originality in his own enterprise (I.117-9, I.921-30; cf. IV. 1-5). The stance that combined homage of the inuentor of a genre with specific criticism of him became the framework for showing what was special about one's own handling of a genre. We see this in Horace's discussion of his relation to Lucilius in Satires I.4 and I.10.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , 1979 , pp. 87 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 1979

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References

1. Bowra, C. M., Pindar (Oxford, 1964), 1–2Google Scholar.

2. Proem to Ann. Bk. I. See Suerbaum, W., Untersuchungen zur Selbstdarstellung älterer römischer Dichter (Hildesheim, 1968), 46–113Google Scholar.

3. Proem to Ann. Bk. VII.

4. Fraenkel, E., Horace (Oxford, 1957), 124Google Scholar.

5. Op. cit. (n.2 above).

6. Kenney, E. J., ‘Doctus Lucretius’, Mnem. 23 (1970), 366–392CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. Buchheit, V., Der Anspruch des Dichters in Vergils Georgika (Darmstadt, 1972Google Scholar). The reader is referred to this work for both a more detailed and a more comprehensive treatment of the role of poetic self-consciousness in the Georgics.

8. Kambylis, A., Die Dichterweihe imd ihre Symbolik (Heidelberg, 1965Google Scholar).

9. Puelma Piwonka, M., Lucilius und Kallimachos (Frankfurt, 1949Google Scholar); Wimmel, W., Kallimachos in Rom (Wiesbaden, 1960Google Scholar).

10. Buchheit (n.7 above) and Wimmel (n.9 above) offer interpretations which depend on taking them together.

11. Wilkinson, L. P., The Georgics of Virgil (Cambridge, 1969), 165–72Google Scholar and App. Ill and ‘Pindar and the Proem to the Third Georgic’ in Forschungen zur römischen Literatur, ed. Wimmel, W. (Wiesbaden, 1970), 286–90Google Scholar.

12. For ‘genre’ in this sense see Hirsch, E. D., Jr., Validity in Interpretation (New Haven and London, 1967), 68ffGoogle Scholar.

13. They can no longer be called ‘digressions’. Cf. Burck, E., ‘Die Komposition von Vergils Georgika’, Hermes 64 (1929), 279–321Google Scholar. The term I use is borrowed from a discussion of the non-expository passages in Lucretius in Kenney, E. J., Lucretius. De Rerum Natura Book 111 (Cambridge, 1971), 15–7Google Scholar.

14. Richter, W., Vergil Georgica (Munich, 1957Google Scholar), ad I.231ff.

15. OCD2 s.v. Eratosthenes.

16. Perhaps the Chorographia of Varro of Atax (fr. 14 Morel) was also used here. If so, the mingling of Greek and Latin sources would be characteristic of Virgil’s methods.

17. Buchheit (n.7 above), 18–9.

18. Wilkinson, The Georgics (n.ll above), 76.

19. Op. Cit., 52.

20. See Kenney (n.13 above), 9–12 on the scope of the De rerum natura.

21. Nikander’s poem de rebus rusticis succeeded poetica quadam facultate, non rustica (Cic. De Orat. I.69f.). Jocelyn, H. D., ‘Virgilius Cacozeks’, ARC A 3 (1979), 141 n.267Google Scholar remarks: ‘To men of literary culture the farm had become a symbol of stylistic crudity.’ He also makes an interesting comment on Virgil’s avoidance of words with ‘a specifically “agricultural” tone’ (117).

22. Klingner, F., ‘Virgil. Grkchische Einflüsse’, Fondation Hardt, Entretiens 2 (Vandoeuvres, 1956), 140–50Google Scholar = Studien (Zurich and Stuttgart, 1964), 284–91.

23. E. Paratore, Virgilio. Le Georgiche (1964), ad loc. compares G.II.458–9: O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint/agricolas (O farmers, only too happy, if they knew their good fortune).

24. Curtius, E. R., European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Trask, W. R. (London, 1953), 128–30Google Scholar; Janson, T., Latin prose prefaces: studies in literary conventions (Stockholm, 1964), 146–7Google Scholar.

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26. H. D. Jocelyn (n.21 above), 72 and n.83. I quote this in the hope that others will understand it better than I.

27. Buchheit (n.7 above), 22–3. See Nisbet and Hubbard on Hor. Odes 1.26.10.

28. Op. cit., 19–20.

29. E.g. da facilem cursum – pelagoque … da uela patenti, coeptis – inceptumque … laborem. Cf. Paratore and Richter ad loc. and Buchheit (n.7 above), 27–8.

30. E.g. Conington, J., The Works of Virgil, Vol. I (London, 1865Google Scholar), ad loc.

31. Kambylis (n.8 above), 151, accepts the emendation in order to avoid the contradiction.

32. Cf. Ecl. VI.9–12 for a parellel juxtaposition of metaphoric and non-metaphoric language.

33. Cf. Servius and breuis expositio ad loc.: ‘patens pelagus’ carminis facilitatem.

34. = perficere, TLL V.l.232.84.

35. Wimmel (n.9 above), 228. For him the originality of the passage lies in the thoughts of drawing back and returning to land.

36. Page, T. E., Bucolica et Georgica (London and New York, 1963 [reprinted]Google Scholar), ad loc.

37. See Wimmel (n.9 above), 227–8 and Kambylis (n.8 above), 149ff.

38. On Horace’s playful attitude to this topos see Syndikus, H. P., Die Lyrik des Horaz, Vol. II (Darmstadt, 1973), 422–3Google Scholar.

39. Wimmel (n.9 above), passim; M. Hubbard, Propertius (London, 1974), 73f., 99, 109ff.; Williams, G., Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (Oxford, 1968), 46–7Google Scholar.

40. Newman, J. K., Augustus and the New Poetry (Brussels, 1967), 108Google Scholar.

41. See Nisbet and Hubbard ad loc. ..

42. Kroll, W., Studien zum Verstandnis der römischen Literatur (Stuttgart, 1921), 189Google Scholar.

43. Op. cit. (n.8 above), 151.

44. Klingner, F., Virgils Georgica (Zurich and Stuttgart, 1963), 73Google Scholar.

45. See Austin on Aen. 6.625f.

46. Jocelyn (n.21 above), 117: ‘He selected only a small part of the first century B.C.’s farmer’s activity to discourse on in his four books and this the part most comprehensible to men of urban ways.’

47. Koster, S. (Antike Epostheorien [Wiesbaden, 1970], 9Google Scholar) suggests that Hesiod (Erga, 10) defines his own subject matter as ‘the truth’ in contrast to the poetic fiction of Homer, but cf. West ad Theog. 27f.

48. For the theory see Brink, C. O., Horace on Poetry. The ‘Ars Poetica’ (Cambridge, 1971), 208–24Google Scholar.

49. I understand the syntax of this sentence with Klingner (n.44 above), 88 n.l. Many editors read artis: artem is primarily the art of agriculture, but cf. Page ad loc. and Parry, A. (‘The Idea of Art in Virgil’s Georgics’, Arethusa 5 [1972], 35–52Google Scholar), who explores the analogy between ars agricolae and ars poetae. Paratore (ad loc.) incorrectly takes laus as military glory, cf. G.III.288.

50. On the importance of the idea of the Golden Age in the Georgics see Wilkinson, The Georgics (n.ll above), 132–5, and Buchheit’s index (n.7 above) under Vergil, Georgika, Heilslandschaft, Heilslehre als Grundidee, Heilswelt = aetas aurea, = Welt der Bauern, = Dichterwelt, = Welt der Musen, Weltaltermotive.

51. See Wilkinson, The Georgics (n.ll above), 153ff., Klingner (n.44 above), 77–91, Buchheit (n.7 above), 20–6.

52. This is denied by Skutsch, O. (Studia Enniana [London, 1968], 119ff.Google Scholar) and Kambylis (n.8 above), 203, but accepted by Suerbaum (n.2 above), 56ff.

53. The reconstruction of the text is that of Skutsch (n.52 above), 12–13.

54. He initiates here the stylised form of words that Augustan poets use to claim priority in ‘Latinizing’ a Greek genre (e.g. Hor. Odes III.30.13–4, Ep. 1.19.23–5, Prop. III.1.3–4). Buchheit (n.7 above), 24.

55. Kenney (n.6 above), 370–1. For ancient parallels see Nisbet and Hubbard on Hor. Odes 1.26.6.

56. TLL VII.l.157.1, 61 and 74–5. Cf. Buchheit (n.7 above), 21 n.85.

57. Cf. Ennius 217V (nos ausi reserare), Hor. Sat. II.1.62f. For the most recent discussion of the Ennius line see Suerbaum (n.2 above), 277–82.

58. Cf. Prop. HI.1.3–4, Newman (n.40 above), 99–206. The notion of the poet as prophet or priest of the Muses was not new, of course (Harriott, R., Poetry and Criticism before Plato [London, 1969], 88Google Scholar and Bowra [n.1 above], 3–14). What was new was the Roman application of the idea to the utterance of grand and public themes.

59. Klingner (n.44 above), 89.

60. Newman (n.40 above), 60: ‘Prof. Fraenkel has called attention (in an Oxford lecture) to the anomaly of the phrase Romana oppida. There were no Romana oppida in the strict sense, only the urbs Roma.’

61. U. v. Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Hellenistische Dichtzmg, Vol. I (Berlin, 1924), 201. More recently, Effe, B., Dichtung und Lehre (Munich, 1977), 80–1Google Scholar.

62. The debate on the significance of Hesiod for Hellenistic and Augustan poetry is complex. For example, Wimmel (n.9 above), 273ff., 238ff., sees Hesiod as a symbol of the unification of the fine style suited to a ‘lower’ subject, larger form and a certain opposition to epic (240). In the case of Virgil he speaks of building a bridge to ‘high’ poetry with Lucretian-Hesiodic help (241). Cf. Ecl. VI.69–75, Prop. 11.10.25.

63. Newman (n.40 above), 216.

64. Newman has analysed the use of cano in Latinitas April (1965), 86ff. but I have not been able to obtain this article.

65. Skutsch (n.52 above), 18–22. Likewise Ennius scornfully rejects his predecessor Naevius with the word uates (214V).

66. ‘The Intention of Virgil’s Georgics’, G&R 19 (1950), 26.

67. The Georgics (n.ll above), 64–5.

68. Richter ad II.458ff.

69. See Wilkinson, The Georgics (n.ll above), 134, 143–5; Klingner, ‘Über das Lob des Landlebens in Virgils Georgica’, Hermes 66 (1931), 159–89 = Studien) (n.22 above), 252–78; Wimmel (n.9 above), 168–87; Buchheit (n.7 above), 55–92.

70. Klingner ([n.69 above], 255 n.l) argues for the independence of G.II.458ff. and Epode II, but see Kiessling-Heinze on Epode II and Richter on G.II.458ff.

71. Vischer, R., Das einfache Leben (Göttingen, 1965), 155Google Scholar.

72. Klingner (n.69 above), 255 n.l. The end of G.II was also influenced by Hellenistic ethnography and by Varro (Horsfall, N., CR 28 [1977], 356–7Google Scholar).

73. See Nisbet and Hubbard on Hor. Odes 11.18 and Fenik, B., ‘Horace’s First and Sixth Roman Odes and the Second Georgic’, Hermes 90 (1962), 72–80Google Scholar.

74. Cf. Barrett, A. A., ‘The Praise of Country Life in the Culex’, La Parola del Passato 25 (1970), 327Google Scholar.

75. Klingner (n.69 above), 175.

76. Kenney (n.l3 above), 9.

77. Buchheit (n.7 above), 59–60, 141–2; E. Harrison, L., ‘The Noric Plague in Vergil’s Third Georgic’, ARCA 3 (1979), 32–3Google Scholar.

78. Klingner (n.69 above), 171–2.

79. Op. cit. (n.7 above), 63.

80. Op. cit. (n.7 above), 80, quoting Lucilius 620–3 Marx, Hor. Sat. II.1.12–5, 1.10.46–9.

81. Conington (n.30 above), ad loc. Commentators cite Emped. fr. 105, Plat. Phaed. 96b. See too Hor. A.P.460 with Brink’s note. The attempt of Buchheit ([n.7 above], 66 n.70) to see literary significance in frigidus is not convincing.

82. For the parallels see Nethercut, W. R., ‘Virgil’s De rerum natura’, Ramus 2 (1973), 51–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar n.15.

83. Conington (n.30 above), ad loc.

84. Cf. Prop. II.34.5l-2, III.5.25–30, Hor. Ep. 1.12.16–20, Ovid Med. Fac. 1–2, Met. XV. 69–72, Aetna Iff.

85. As suggested by most commentators. I find B. Erie ([n.61 above], 85 n.10) agrees with me.

86. Curtius (n.24 above), 230. Cf. Page ad loc.

87. Op. cit. (n.6 above), 372–80.

88. Op. cit., 378.

89. Newman (n.40 above), 101–3, citing Strabo IV.4.4 ( = Posidonius).

90. Paratore (n.23 above), ad loc. says it is the Epicurean ideal of the ‘hidden life’.

91. One would like to know whether the Greek names in 485ff. are doing anything more precise than evoking the Greek poetic world in general (Richter thinks not). Mt. Helicon is omitted, as is any place with strong poetic associations, though Haemus can be connected with Orpheus (Nisbet and Hubbard on Hor. Odes 1.12.6). The Spercheos rises on Mt. Pindus, which acquired poetic associations through Virgil’s imitation of Theocr. Id. I.66ff. at Ecl. X.9ff. (see Nisbet and Hubbard above). Taygete may be intended to evoke Alcman (fr. 56 PMG). Buchheit ([n.7 above], 69–70) argues for an allusion to Bacchus as god of poetry in uirgimbus bacchata.

92. See Nisbet and Hubbard on Hor. Odes 1.1.30. Tac. Dial. 12.7f. refers to our passage as a locus classicus. Buchheit (n.7 above), 58, finds this theme anticipated in 458ff.

93. Cf. Newman (n.40 above), 217.

94. Dirichlet, G. L., De uetertmt macarismis (Giessen, 1914CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

95. Snell, B., Scenes from Greek Drama (London, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964), 93Google Scholar.

96. Gladigow, B., ‘Zum Makarismos des Weisen’, Hermes 95 (1967), 404ffGoogle Scholar.

97. Norden, E., Agnostos Theos (Berlin, 1913), 100Google Scholar and n.l.

98. Cf. Buchheit (n.7 above), 73.

99. Conington (n.30 above), ad loc.

100. Norden (n.97 above), 100–1.

101. Paratore, E., ‘Spunti lucreziani nelle Georgiche’, Atene e Roma 41 (1939), 186Google Scholar.

102. Buchheit (n.7 above), 71–2.

103. Klingner (n.69 above), 173–4 (my translation): ‘The fears which according to Epicurus and Lucretius make the study of natural phenomena on earth and in the sky necessary and desirable, especially the fear of the gods and of death, do not play a significant part in Virgil’s emotions, in the light of the evidence of his works. When he calls someone happy who has overcome these fears through explanations of natural phenomena, he does this not because of any profound emotional needs, but from the commonly accepted point of view propounded by Epicurean philosophy. On the other hand, the sufferings from which one is saved by rural life, the sufferings which arose from the disorder and destructiveness of people living together in Italy and the whole world, the sufferings caused by loss of harmony in life, it is these that Virgil feels, and these determine his thinking generally. And this praise of the happiness of the man devoted to country life comes from his own deep needs. Thus it is clear that in the juxtaposition of natural phenomena and rural retreat, the emphasis falls on the latter.’

104. Kenney (n.13 above), 17–20. On the question of positive values see Lyne, R. O. A. M., ‘Scilicet et tempus ueniet …’ in Quality and Pleasure in Latin Poetry, ed. T. Woodman and D. West (Cambridge, 1974), 47–9Google Scholar.

105. See Dodds ad loc.

106. Snell (n.95 above), 70–98; Gladigow (n.96 above), 421 n.l.

107. The translation is that of Snell (n.95 above), 70.

108. Cf. Buchheit (n.7 above), 142ff., who argues for a reconciliation in Virgil of the uita actiua and the uita umbratilis. The latter is no longer Epicurean but influenced by the old Roman idea of mos maiorum, and by the Virgilian interpretation of the theory of the ages of the world in the context of the larger political sphere.

109. Cf. Kenney (n.13 above), 17–20.

110. Klingner (n.69 above), 180.

111. Bréguet, E., ‘Le thème alius … ego chez les poètes latins’, REL 60 (1962), 28ffGoogle Scholar.

112. See Nisbet and Hubbard ad loc.

113. A point well made by Klingner (n.69 above), 180.

114. Op. cit. (n.40 above), 109.

115. Effe (n.61 above), 80–3.

116. Wilkinson, ‘Pindar and the Proem …’ (n.ll above); Buchheit (n.7 above), 148–59.

117. Newman (n.61 above), 218–9.

118. There are perceptive remarks on this in Lyne (n.104 above), 65–6.