The Georgics of Virgil

the long version

In the author's view, the 'Georgics' is far from being tediously didactic; on the contrary, it is vividly descriptive, the first poem in all literature in which description is the chief source of pleasure, a poem written not so much to teach farmers as to delight readers. And it is more than simply this. It is concerned with a way of life, it is infused with deep personal feeling and philosophical purpose, and it is overlaid with a rich texture of religious, political and symbolic motifs. This book is a critical analysis of the poem in all these dimensions.