All entries for Tuesday 17 January 2006

Tuesday, 17 January

Haven’t left the house yet today.

Spent most of the morning and afternoon reading and compiling my ideas on Servius. Having read everything I have [and have yet to read, or haven’t recently looked at] in parts of books and photocopies, I trawled through a few articles on JSTOR—notably a useful piece on biographical allegory in the Eclogues by Raymond Starr.

With that done, I scribbled down a summary of what I could skim off all that on paper before deciding to try to commit a plan to Microsoft Word. I have divided my chapter into a two-part essay with the “hidden question”: For what reasons and in what ways did the Servian commentary shape Petrarch’s reading of the Eclogues? It will focus initially on Servius’ importance and appeal to Petrarch before looking specifically at what of his influence can be deduced in the Carmen. I think I could probably make a decent job of the first half right now but the second will require more reading and pondering.

After that, I read about half of the Petrarch chapter in Kallendorf’s In Praise Of Aeneas - will pick it up again tomorrow. Had to leave it halfway through because of this Greek translation that needed doing - turned out to be lengthier than I remembered, but now finished.

Trundling over to the Leamington Apollo this evening to collect my metrosexual stripes before seeing Buttcrack Mountain. I fear that all I’ve read today of pius Aeneas and his fortitude will do nothing to prevent me from whimpering like a scolded dog before the end credits roll.

: 17 Jan 2006 18:21 |  Tags: Classics Eclogues Ma Petrarch Research Virgil |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem