Virgil

This article is about the ancient Roman poet. For the grammarian, see Virgilius Maro Grammaticus. For other uses, see Virgil (disambiguation).

Virgil
Modern bust of Virgil at the entrance to his crypt in Naples
Modern bust of Virgil at the entrance to his crypt in Naples
BornPublius Vergilius Maro
15 October 70 BC
Andes, Cisalpine Gaul, Roman Republic
Died21 September 19 BC (aged 50)
Brundisium, Italy, Roman Empire
OccupationPoet
NationalityRoman
GenreEpic poetry, didactic poetry, pastoral poetry
Literary movementAugustan poetry
Notable worksEclogues
Georgics
Aeneid

Publius Vergilius Maro (Classical Latin: [ˈpuːbliʊs wɛrˈɡɪliʊs ˈmaroː]; 15 October 70 BC – 21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil (/ˈvɜːrdʒɪl/ VUR-jil) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars generally regard these works as spurious, with the possible exception of a few short pieces.

Already acclaimed in his own lifetime as a classic author, Virgil rapidly replaced Ennius and other earlier authors as a standard school text, and stood as the most popular Latin poet through late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and early modernity, exerting inestimable influence on all subsequent Western literature. Geoffrey Chaucer assigned Virgil a uniquely prominent position among all the celebrities of human history in The House of Fame, standing "on a pilere / that was of tinned yren clere" (1486–7), and in the Divine Comedy, in which Virgil appears as the author's guide through Hell and Purgatory, Dante pays tribute to Virgil, tu se' solo colui da cu'io tolsi / lo bello stile che m'ha fatto onore (Inf. I.86–7), "thou art alone the one from whom I took the beautiful style that has done honour to me." In the 20th Century, T. S. Eliot famously began a lecture on the subject "What Is a Classic?" by asserting as self-evidently true that "whatever the definition we arrive at, it cannot be one which excludes Virgil – we may say confidently that it must be one which will expressly reckon with him."[1]

  1. ^ Eliot, T. S. "What Is a Classic?". In Chinitz, David E.; Schuchard, Ronald (eds.). The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical Edition. Vol. 6: The War Years, 1940–1946. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 669–687.