Note: This program was broadcast on April 8th 2007 on WGBH.
Click here to read a review of the interview on PRX.
David Ferry
Noted Cambridge poet David Ferry has recently translated Virgil’s Georgics, and on ThoughtCast he joins Virgil scholar Richard Thomas, the chair of Harvard’s Classics Dept., for a detailed examination of this beautiful and insufficiently known poem. It is said to have taken Virgil 7 years to write, from about 36 to 29 B.C.
Richard Thomas
As such, the Georgics was written during a period of political instability and chronic civil war, and inevitably reflects Virgil’s dark, often pessimistic outlook on human nature. But at the same time, The Georgics — which means “agriculture” in Greek — is a celebration of nature and its ceaseless beauty. As Virgil describes the cycles of crops, the seasons, the weather — the birth, death and rebirth that mark the natural world, he provides us with a complex, realistic, painful but enduringly uplifting poem.
Click here:
to listen (29 minutes).
Click here to listen to a lecture by David Ferry on “The Art and Practice of Literary Translation” on the WGBH Forum Network.
Tags:
agriculture,
classics,
david ferry,
georgics,
harvard classics,
Harvard professor Richard Thomas,
jenny attiyeh,
latin,
Poetry,
thoughtcast,
virgil
March 10th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
In fact, as I learned from this excellent podcast interview with the poet David Ferry and the classicist Richard Thomas, the Georgics was probably not, even in its time, a functional manual. Farmers who could read Latin would sooner have resorted to manuals in prose. And, as Thomas notes, modern attempts at farming according to the Georgics have failed completely. When tried in the world, the poem’s testimony is not reliable.
April 28th, 2010 at 12:06 am
Thank you for your informative program. I am using both classic and modern interpretations of Eurydice (Virgil and S. Ruhl) for an undergraduate performance theory/practice course. Your program peaked my interest to depart from my regular routine to the unknown terrain of Virgil. I plan to become a regular listener! Shannon Wong Lerner
May 17th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
What is the recorded latin reading of the Georgics that is used at the beginning of the program? It occurs at the 1:00 minute mark. I would love to know if I can purchase it. Thank you.
October 30th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Thanks so much for reliable Cambridge citation on “realism” perhaps with a degree of hope intertwined in the essentially tyrannical period loosely which followed the Consulship of Cicero in 63 B.C. I am no classicist, but absent a real battle of Greece and Troy ca: 2000/1184 +/- B.C., the best known Vergil follows loosely in myth and the like the Homeric tale Illiad and Odyssey. I am interested in “realism,” and thanks so very much for your confirmation of this in the agricultural discussive and poetic.
I have published/posted on Triblocal.com and more recently under my full legal name as you have it on Sarah Palin’s A Time For Choosing the Italian derivations and lineages of our flag and namesake flowing from Amerigo Vespucci’s 6000 mile trip and his “New World” published in 1502/03. “On the hub of the half millenium ..” I begin. My douplet is America and Doveneck Jeannie. It is annotated poetry written essentially in the year 2000 to celebrate an essential half millenium in counterpose to the 1776 bicentenial. Problem is, as we read so unpleasantly in Seutonius, Democracy ended with the Ceasars, and Italian history, at least as a cohesive country became debased until perhaps the time of Garribaldi(sp?), Mazzini, Verdi and Victor Emmanuel. I also have a clip on Garibbaldi with a speech and some talk on art in A Time For Choosing. The Medicis were of utmost importance in Florence, but as regards a city-state, at that 1500 period, with Lorenzo the Great passing in 1492. My information is that the Vespuccis were placed sufficiently highly in Florence to be friends with the Medicis, though Amerigo himself retired and passed himself in Spain.
I hope you have understood my interest, and I have been clear on the minute issue of “realism” during autocracy which led me to your site for verification of the nature of the Georgics and why it happened to interest me. You are welcome to contact me; again I am not a classicist but a modern essayist and playwright. As of yesterday, my written out resume was available under Google Search, Mark V. Basile, in an 11,000+ CHICAGO NOW publication. So you need not treat this comment absent my name. Very, very good site. And thanks not only to Cambridge but also to Harvard. MVB.
October 30th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
It has been several hours, and I have checked on your moderation, which is still in progress. I do actually have a single item as a follow-up — if you post. Perhaps I was not sufficiently careful when I articulated our bicentennnial. 1976 would be more precise, I believe, as opposed to noting 1776 as I did. Mark V. Basile. 10/30/10. At any rate, thank you for inviting me to follow-up. When I came through the university system, it was my understanding and experience that Cambridge was an ultimate institution. As an aside, you did in fact publish my stellar classics teacher (with Oxford and the University of Chicago), Raphael Sealey. What a startling eye-opening moment it was for a simple middle class Midwesterner when presented with the sacred Gilgamesh for study in and of itself and in historic context. (!)
March 3rd, 2011 at 7:55 am
In the modern millieu, events can cause us to sour on some we had taken more or less as they presented themselves, such as the Palin Organization. For example, I was relatively stupefied when she screamed “blood libel” recently in response to a shooting in Arizona, which seemed to me to be a sort of trolling for Jews. To wit: the bloating of “Jews for Sarah.” Other things.
But here is:
One of your very own, Dr. Martin Malia of Harvard as eulogized by Professor Riasanovsky in 2004 upon Martin’s passing in Oakland, California.
Though the “classics” or the implications for the classics in Georg Hegel of Prussia (post Martin Luther, hence biased against at places called the true scholar of the Reformation or the “Lion of the Reformation,” Erasmus — indeed the lightweight Luther who had been ‘hangin around Erasmus’ until he could get a copy of the erudition and Erasmus’s reconstruction of The Bible from him) are not enormously fruitful, as far as I can see, though
it was a start. Or a re-start.
Looking to the past for examples, or finding not only adornment as per Humanities as opposed to such in combination with social science with its sister investigative affiliates, may be an “essential” to our cultural base. Sometimes we call this our Greco-Roman Heritage. At least to mention a few, at very least, I had learned of and been trained concerning contemporary observers Herodotus, General Thucydides with the Peloppenesian Wars and a grievance of the Spartan-led group, Seutonius on the enormously sad devolutions of the Caesars with the possible exception of an archaic practice of Imperium not dicatated a first but placed in Triumvirate as Gaius Jullius returned with Gallic (ancient France) Wars also via his confidant, librarian and military associate Marc Antony, General Sallust with the assault on Cicero or the Catalline revolution against Republic 63-62 BC, and then the several of relations and ‘contemplations’ of Marcus Tullius Cicero himself. Also, I had the enormous fortune to study under Peter Brown of Cal whose attention I might draw you to as regards “Augustine of Hippo,” North Africa as City of God apeared to be responding to collapse of Empire. As an aside, I picked up some notes of his on indigenous Numidian Royalty, and to my amusement, I gained the impression that Augustine was an African through and through, and he didn’t even care about the crimes of Carthage, he just plain didn’t like Scipio Africannus for his (just) revenge against the Hannibal assault (on African/Algerian later soil).
Inasmuch as I believe Martin Malia of Harvard/Cal. Berkeley argued “successfully” that Karl Marx with his moron associate Engels “turned Hegel on his head,” that is from an essential idealist or organicist to the incorrect materialistic interpretation, here (in part one) I believe your Dr. Martin re-constructed History, with
An Integrety of itself.
(Thanks for grabbing up my Aeschylus with the development, and the notes on Aphasia I think it was with the Euripidean re-interpretation of “justice” through (the figure of) Elektra. (You know I would guess that there are also Ladies’ movies also out on Women of Troy and Iphgenia (sp?) which may at this point benfit from a Harvard ‘re-do’ combining “finest” classicism with enough of ‘dramatic touch’ where it does not distort the (historic) narrative.) Though “Furies” may have witnessed progress in developed Courts of of the Polis various, in Aeschylus, we seem to have had a “wrong result.” Orestes should have been (severely) PUNISHED by Pallas Athena for the matricide. (I have no notes in front of me, but it has been a while since I “got back,” and meanwhile, I did come across the moving biographical eulogy of Martin by Dr. Riasanovsky, et. which I placed/posted at Triblocal.com of the Chicago Tribune on-line as a note or comment under my sister’s Lifesaving Award from the Governor. Katie Basile, under keyword “Basile” on said Skokie site.
Best Regards, Mark V. Basile. 3/3/11.
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THE ROMANTIC REVOLT AGAINST ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE DEVASTATIONS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: GEORG HEGEL
In Germany, Romanticism began in the 1740’s and 1750’s as a literary and cultural revolt against, for the most part, the French classicism and Enlightenment ideas imparted by King Frederick II during his campaign of Prussian modernization. Lessing attempted to free Germany from the French influence and create a German national theater to reflect the peculiarities of German national culture. Goethe, in revolt against dry ‘soulless’ rationalism, attempted to create the ‘cult of the heart’ while looking back toward a mythical Gothic ancestry. Schiller combined Rousseau’s notion of conscience with the German inner freedom in his ‘cult of the genius rebel.’
The Germans continued to look for their unique cultural character as Schlegel proposed the use of medieval, Gothic and Christian Europe for the model in aesthetics. It was his notion that art should examine chivalry, love, honor and religion. The idea of the genius as an unconscious choice of the highest degree also enters in. Novalis examines a dynamic historical process which destroyed universal and Catholic Europe and thereby perverted man and woman’s true nature. Still, he recognizes the importance of science and the need to reconcile a deeply religious Germany with the advances in the sciences. He proposed the union of science with religion through the use of rationalism as a ‘new veil for the saints.’ In addition to the rationalizing of religion, Novalis speaks of the organistic union of all Christian peoples.
It is in this cultural milieu that Hegel emerges. The roots of many of his ideas on historicism, organicism and the uniqueness and (semi-)divinity of the German state were already ‘in the air.’ Hegel’s great task was to reconcile religion with rationality. Kant had already attempted a similar synthesis: the Critique of Theoretical Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason however remained totally separate until their final meeting on a transcendental plane. Hegel combined Reason and God from the very beginning with Reason being the laws of logic through which the Idea or God unfolds through History. Still, Hegel did take and transpose from Kant that the mind organizes externality, and what we know is the Idea through the transcendental knowing subject, “I.”
Hegel continued on his massive synthesis by incorporating his pietistic southern German background and the overwhelming Christian heritage of Germany itself into a vast metaphysical allegory of, or, more accurately, a transformation of Christianity into a naturalized or pantheised and rationalized cast.
In reduced form, God is the Idea or Reason. Logic – the structure of the Idea in itself. Through a dialectical reconciliation of being and non-being, or the real and the non-existent, the Idea according to its internal Logic unfolds itself. Thus Process or Becoming has begun. The Idea developing itself in space is Nature (Idea for itself), yet if Nature is rational, this implies consciousness, which nature has not. The Idea must therefore return into itself, and reform itself as consciousness developing in time. This is the Spirit. The Idea coming to mankind is the Spirit or Geist, and man through his development of consciousness in philosophy culminates the world process as the Idea – now fully conscious mankind – returns into itself and completes itself.
As of Hegel’s day, the process was not yet complete so Germany, as the “thinking head of Europe,” was the pinnacle of the Idea’s current development. History is Rational, the Process of the Idea’s current development. History indeed is Rational, the Process of the Idea’s Logic in time; God is fully imminent in the world.
In his Philosophy of the Spirit, Hegel links his overarching philosophy organically with the development of man’s culture. As the Spirit logically unfolds, it expresses itself subjectively (spirit in itself) as man; objectively (spirit outside itself) as family and civil society. Finally, in and for itself as the State. In his Philosophy of the Spirit he organically links art, religion and philosophy along with the individual, civil society and the State.
The Philosophy of History shows an organic and processive notion of history with the three great moments of history being the Orient (in which one is free), classical antiquity (where some are free) and the modern western world (in which all supposedly are free). History as the progress of men and women is also the progress from feudalism, to Roman Catholic Germany, to Reformation Germany. And at the end of this long process lies the Prussian state and modern German philosophy. (Dr. Martin Malia lectures, University of California at Berkeley).
(Part 1 of 2)
By Mark V. Basile. Master’s Equivalent, UC Berkeley and NLU, Skokie, et (F. P … of Lyons/Berwyn intended to join us for family Thanksgiving dinner with his charming wife from Indianoplis and his three young daughters, two of them twins. Frank is with the Associated Press and was recently assigned to the Bejing Olympics.) ND, Niles 1973, #2. Alum Chair: star pitcher from 73, Dick Allegretti.
March 13th, 2011 at 8:50 am
As I fuss and fuss over Harvard, here’s a tip to Dr. David Ferry, US Literati to UK, my preference being Labo(u)r at what I last recognized, our bi-lateral Lion, post-Winston CHURCHILL — The Honorable Tony Blair ( who at bottom had “the education” a simple man or the people – GDANSK — and Nobel Peace into Presidency did not have, whence allusion: “White Eagle”) Back: a Shipyards.
That is, I have a NAFTA/Carlos Fuentes -critic (perhaps at envoy of Ambassador lineage, moreover) At Cambridge in lecture. Search, well-received. On Search, peripheral as time limited, as a rule, do not use John Dos Passos, USA, he’s a quasi-anarchist. Otherwise, you have language to language, en espaniol, with the simple words at NAFTA. I found beyond promising. I cite, moreover, Carlos Fuentes in my “Millenium Brochure.” Vincente — 2000. Mark and Mary of “Our Lady” Senior Prom. Obviously, en francaise: Notre ‘Dame.’ In “our” particular ‘faith.’
And bless you Dr. Ferry for the thankless work you and the Lattimores as such have done for shared civilization, as indeed woe the ruins of Gaius the Terrible, in:
Our Greco-Roman Basin. POPE, 7th Level of Hell. correctement? But see: Eramus as opposed to “Folly,” in proposition as the Lion of the Reformation. And woe, the “slaughterbech of Histoires,” the tyrannical Prime Minister Cardinal Mazzarin. L’Etat, c’est (CHAOS: pre-pantheon, as wo/men began to inscribe –
CIVILIZATION. “WE the Euro-American Peoples,” are NOT Monkey-Men. We are bron of CIVILIAZATION. As the Egyptions, I believe at Middle Nile both
Settled to prvide for susistence, and looked up and said,
RA. Truly Your Dr. Ferry. Acroos the Atlantic. Mark.
Post Note: The question is, is the 3-year consort-marriage of Marc Antony to Cleopatra of Ptolemeic (lingiustics may play as obviously Alexandian to Cleopatra in Greece);
“usable history?”
Attache.
Military Officer.
Gaius claiming Triumvarate prior to devolution, where Orthodoxy opines “Imperium,”
Carrier of “essential,” Anglo-Franco, Gallic Wars.
There is a “restoration law” cited in places between Triumvirates, unfortunately with pendancies which reversed ‘the intent’ upon what I cannot conceive of as anything other than Pure “Evil:”
Satan Augustus, cite Google Search, top 10, 2010 (October 23, top 3-5) under “Expulsion of the Tarquins”(Junius) and “Doveneck Jeannie.” (“Katie’s”)
MY “stormy” little trooper: Katie, Midwest Partners, MS, Kiniseologist, Masters Teaching Assistant and Research semi-fellow, CPT, Assistant Director – 10 years my Junior — in “carriage” on-floor biological age 29, prior Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago #1 US 20+ years -spinal and multiple sclerosis, Kate’s specialties -RIC, recipient of coveted cancer treatment award, Governor’s Award, 2010; Lifesaving. Again, “yours.” (/Thoughtcast, you found her, say ye ??)– all but ‘r. beauty.’
July 21st, 2011 at 11:52 am
HI Mark,
Thank you for your contributions and your thoughts, and let me apologize for not continuing to post your comments. Although I appreciate the erudition behind them, I’ve already posted quite a few, and at this point, will leave the space for other people to comment.
All the best,
Jenny