At 08:19 AM 8/13/01 -0500, David Wilson-Okamura wrote:
>Now the reason that I am mentioning this to the Virgil list is that, as
>Kaske rightly points out, the rhetorical handbooks of the period do _not_
>analyze images in this manner; "imagery" was not, and never had been, a
>term in classical rhetoric. Commentaries on classical texts may be a
>different sort of animal. Servius, for instance, cross-references the text
>of Virgil repeatedly. But does he cross-reference imagery? I haven't found
>any convincing examples yet, though I have Thomas's 1880 essay on Servius
>on order from the library and I'm hoping to find something on the subject
>there. In the meantime, what think ye? Do we have any evidence that
>Virgil's earliest readers were interested in his "imagery," or was that
>whole method of reading something that came in with Christianity?
Don't know if anyone is following this, but here's an update in any case. When
I got to the library this morning, Emile Thomas, Scoliastes de Virgile: Essai
sur Servius et son commentatire sur Virgile (Paris, 1880) was waiting for me.
This is what he says under the heading of "Lacunes de l'interpretation
litteraire dans les commentaires anciens sur Virgile." (I apologize in advance
for omitting accents, but accents have a way of choking some email clients.)
...Servius a defendu les droits de la raison et du bon sens, et
il merite qu'on s'en souivenne lorsqu'on reconnait chez lui les
defauts de son temps. Mais quoi que nous essayons pour faire la
difference des ecoles anciennes et des notres, de notre gout et
celui de l'antiquite, nous avons grand'peine a comprendre les
enormes lacunes de cette interpretation litteraire. Comment! sur
un poete d'un sentiment a la fois si vif et si doux, si rapide
et si profond, pas une remarque de sentiment? Sur un style si
riche d'images et de tours poetiques, rien ou presque rien, que
des remarques de grammaire?... A force de se borner a l'explication
des mots, a l'observation des regles (En., VI, 660), ils ne voient
riens autre chose... Virgile est pour eux tout entier dans un mot,
une expression, un vers. Par moments, on dirait meme qu'en le lisant
et en l'expliquant, ils refusent de l'entendre. (p. 245-46)
Thomas goes on to qualify this a bit, and there _are_ synoptic discussions of
the text in Servius' book introductions. But the
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Subject: VIRGIL: question
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In Book I of Aeneid there is a reference to "people of the sky" (one
translation) in relation to destruction of Carthage. I don't have a Latin
text. How does that phrase read in Latin?
Joan Lepley
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