LATIN 520 A: Seminar

Latin 520 Aut 2024, provisionally MW 2:30-4:20, DEN 257  

Stephen Hinds

‘Virgil’s Eclogues and post-Virgilian pastoral’

A graduate seminar/reading course pairing Virgil’s Eclogues with some of their ancient, medieval and early modern bucolic receptions.  The core job of the course will be to achieve close familiarity with Virgil’s Eclogues (aka Bucolica) in Latin, reading them with the help of the best modern commentaries:  Wendell Clausen (1994), Andrea Cucchiarelli (2012 in Italian; now 2023 in English), and still Robert Coleman (1977).  Without neglecting the formative influence upon the Eclogues of Theocritean bucolic and post-Theocritean bucolic lament (esp. associated with Bion), our main intertextual energies will be directed forwards in time, with especial attention to versions of Virgilian pastoral in post-antique Europe, in Latin but also in the vernacular languages; Milton’s Latin Epitaphium Damonis and English Lycidas offer one single-author demonstration of the value of thinking about pastoral reception cross-linguistically.   One or two translation tests on Virgil’s Eclogues, and a conference-length paper, in which some consideration of post-Virgilian pastoral will be encouraged.