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2.Course Overview
Comprehensive Description: Students will engage with substantial selections from Vergil’s Georgics, reading them alongside carefully chosen Latin intertexts that illuminate the poem’s literary, cultural, and political dimensions. The course situates Vergil within a fully Latin continuum, drawing on passages from Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, Varro’s De Re Rustica, Columella, and other Roman authors. Through these readings, students will trace how themes of labor, nature, and knowledge intersect with questions of authority, discipline, and social organization in Roman thought. Particular emphasis will be placed on the political resonances of the Georgics. Written in the aftermath of civil war and during the consolidation of Augustan power, the poem reflects on land, cultivation, and productivity in ways that echo broader efforts to restore order and stability to the Roman world.
3. Proficiency & Requirements
Language Level:
Framework Reference: This course is intended for students with an intermediate level of Latin. If you have completed Chapter 41 of Roma Aeterna, the course is appropriate for you.
General Description: Intermediate: For students who can comfortably read simple prose and engage in basic active dialogue.
Estimated Self-Study Time:
Time Commitment: 3-4 hours per week.
Preparation Type: Students are expected to have performed a first reading of the text or the assigned secondary reading prior to class prior but close readings happen during class time.
4. Materials & Bibliography
Required Textbooks:
Primary Text: Vergil. Georgics. Edited by Richard F. Thomas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Disclaimer: The acquisition of the physical or digital textbook is mandatory for course attendance. Please ensure you have your copy before the first session.
Further Reading:
o Farrell, Joseph. Vergil’s Georgics and the Traditions of Ancient Epic. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
o Gale, Monica R. Virgil on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius, and the Didactic Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
o Kronenberg, Leah. The Politics of Epic in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
o Nappa, Christopher. Reading After Actium: Vergil’s Georgics, Octavian, and Rome. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.
o Perkell, Christine. The Poet’s Truth: A Study of the Poet in Vergil’s Georgics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
o Thomas, Richard F. Reading Vergil’s Georgics: Interpreting the Poem in the Light of Its Reception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
o Varro. De Re Rustica. Edited by Donald McN. L. MacKinnon. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960.
***Digital resources will be provided as well.
5. ATTENDANCE, CERTIFICATION AND RECORDINGS
By enrolling, you agree to our standard academic regulations. These guidelines include the minimum attendance required to earn a Certificate of Completion, policies regarding lesson recording availability, mandatory parental consent for minors, and intellectual property protections. Please read our complete Attendance, Certifications, and Recordings Policy herefor full details on attendance, certifications, session recordings, user privacy, intellectual property rights, and special learning accommodations.
