A Companion to the Study of Virgil (Mnemosyne Supplements) [Hardcover]

Nicholas Horsfall (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 9004095594 | ISBN-13: 978-9004095595 | Publication Date: August 1995

This work provides a guide both to the key problems and to important discussions in the study of Virgil's work. It is intended to be of use to graduate students and university teachers. Many of the issues are difficult and artificial simplifications seem to offer no advantages. Apart from ample discussion of the poems and the main issues they raise, the book offers chapters examining topics such as the life of Virgil, his style, and his influence on late Latin epic and on Latin life and culture.

Editorial Reviews

Review

From reviews of the hardcover edition
'"This is a book for teachers to recommend to their students. More senior scholars too must have this book on their shelves. They will appreciate the clear and balanced surveys - and the huge quantity of useful information.'
Oliver Lyne, "Classical Review, 1999.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Nicolas Horsfall lives in Rome and has published numerous books and articles on Latin literature, mythology and the Roman world, including: La villa sabina di Orazio (Venosa 1993); Virgilio: L'epopea in alambicco (Napoli 1991); Cornelis Nepos: A selection, including the lives of Cato and Atticus; translated with introductions and commentary (Oxford 1989); Vir bonus discendi peritus; studies in celebration of Otto Skutsch's eightieth birthday (London 1988); Roman myth and mythography with J.N. Bremmer (London 1987) --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 326 pages
• Publisher: Brill Academic Pub (August 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9004095594
• ISBN-13: 978-9004095595
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,045,153 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful, but terribly written, October 8, 2008

By 

M. le vicomte de rien "LeVicomte" (Yale) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Companion to the Study of Virgil (Brill's Scholars' List) (Paperback)

A useful guide to the whole of Virgil's corpus, but it is painful to read. In the second sentence of the Introduction, for example, we are told that "G. and Aen. in particular have become ... battlefields." Of course the author means the Georgics and the Aeneid, but the Short Title list appears AFTER the Introduction. For the sake of the reader, should not the FIRST use of a title be the "long" one?
Consider also the prose-style. Although it is not impenetrable, one wonders whether its worth the effort getting into:
"The question can perhaps be answered better at the end of the poem, but it may prove helpful to air it at the outset, in as much as the poet seems, if (conventional or traditional) critics have read the text's explicit rhetoric in lines (say) 1-296 with some degree of insight and understanding, to have been exceptionally generous with his indications of the levels at which he proposes to write and the manner in which he wishes -- or so it would appear -- to be understood."
The next sentence is worse still: "If that remark is in itself now, in some eyes, a critical fallacy, then I can only say that here I am writing about what I (and the scholars I cite) have seen and heard in the prooemium."

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A somewhat annoying companion, March 14, 2007

By 

SkookumPete (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Companion to the Study of Virgil (Brill's Scholars' List) (Paperback)

This book may be of value to someone who really knows Virgil and Virgilian scholarship, but Horsfall's style is so idiosyncratic, and his approach so random, that students and other intermediate readers are best warned off. Ideas are presented, or hinted at, in sentences or sentence fragments overflowing with parentheses, exclamation points, question marks, footnotes, and cross-references. The text is poorly edited and in places doesn't make any sense at all. Overall, one gets the impression that Horsfall (who wrote most of the book, and translated two chapters from Italian into his own idiom) is a brilliant scholar who welcomes us into his brain but really can't be bothered tidying up before we come in.