Thus F.’s hypothesis leads him not only to a new interpretation of the literary affiliations of the Georgics, widely seen as primarily indebted to the Callimachean tradition, but also entails a reevaluation of a number of the most common assumptions about the history of Latin literature in the first century BCE. “The earlier allusions to Hesiod, Aratus, and Lucretius look ahead to the Homeric “Aristaeus” in Book 4, which is based on a conception of Homer as a poet not of kings and battles, but of nature and philosophy” (320). claims that the Georgics should be seen as “a tripartite poem as determined by a pattern of allusion, that we have in Book 1 a ‘Hesiodic/Aratean’ Georgics, in Books 2-3 a ‘Lucretian’ and in Book 4 a ‘Homeric’ one”(133-4). argues that Vergil’s plan was, through this pattern of allusion, to reintegrate Homer into the line of didactic, or natural philosophical, poetry, based on the ancient allegorical interpretation of Homer. Along the lines already suggested by P.R. this is the epic tradition, and he suggests that based on Vergil’s allusive scheme we must reevaluate currently prevalent views about the dichotomy in the ancient epic tradition between “Homeric” and non-heroic epic (“Hesiodic” as represented by the Alexandrians and ‘Neoterics’). discovers in the poem a systematic program of allusion which should be read as an “encrypted literary-historical essay” embodying Vergil’s statement about the entire tradition that produced the Georgics. encourages us to rethink some of our basic assumptions about the nature of allusion and Latin literary history.į.’s thesis is revealed in the subtitle of his book: he proposes to read in the allusive program of the Georgics an essay in literary history, “an essay which renders much more intelligible the course that Vergil followed in his career ” (viii). This is an original and challenging book, containing much detailed discussion of individual passages as well as a number of important far-reaching interpretations. intends to illuminate specifically Vergil’s use of the epic tradition and to focus on the literary-historical nature of Vergilian allusion. This does not mean, however, that he makes use of the wide range of literary allusions which Thomas has so importantly revealed nor is his aim exhaustive F.

claims to offer a full-scale interpretive study of Vergilian allusion. 2 With the Quellenforschung largely already done, F.

He has incorporated almost all recent work on the Georgics through 1989, and consequently has been able to take advantage of Thomas’ commentary, but not that of Mynors. F.’s book reveals a long engagement with the subject. Mynors 1 and now this in-depth study of allusion in the Georgics by Joseph Farrell, we have been amply provided with evidence to evaluate this assertion. Scholars who write on the Georgics tend to claim that it is the most allusive poem of antiquity whether this is true or not, with the recent publication of two new commentaries by R.F.

Allusion in epic definition