Virgil
Subtitle: his life and times
By: Peter Levi.
Edition: 1st U.S. ed.
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 248
Subjects: Virgil.; Ovid, 43 B.C.-17 or 18 A.D. -- Friends and associates.; Horace -- Friends and associates.; Virgil -- Friends and associates.; Poets, Latin -- Biography.; Rome -- History -- Augustus, 30 B.C.-14 A.D. -- Biography.; Rome -- Intellectual life.
Description: In this biography, the eminent classicist Peter Levi uses Virgil's poems, like the Eclogues, Georgics, his epic, The Aeneid, as well as historical and archeological evidence, to discard many of the myths surrounding Virgil's life. In doing so, he uncovers the life of a poet whose powerful imagination and ethereal ability helped shape the epic vision of modern man.

Indeed, Virgil's densely written and beautifully complex verse dominated Augustan Rome, the period of unprecedented prosperity, peace, and expansion that inaugurated the Golden Age of Roman poetry. Virgil, in fact, was the one poet who most fully understood the Roman Empire's enduring legacy and through his poetry defined the idea of civilization for generations to come.

Although contemporary critics and readers often overlook Virgil's genius, Levi demonstrates that to neglect Virgil is to truncate many of the literary foundations of our culture.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 230-232) and index.
Originally published: London : Duckworth, 1998.