Wednesday, 05 July

Brief update.

Have waited four weeks now for Janet Smarr's English translation of Boccaccio's Buccolicum Carmen to arrive from British Library on inter-library loan. Concede that I might have done more to work with the Latin text on its own -- which is available online [thanks Carlo] and also in the Warwick library — but at over two–and–a–half thousand verses I've kept putting it off in expectation that the Smarr will soon arrive.

Still, have scraped together enough bibliography — mainly from Bergin's Boccaccio, Grant's Neo-Latin Literature and the Pastoral, and Hubbard's Pipes of Pan -- to start gathering information eclogue-by-eclogue and to prepare for when I finally do get to read them. I feel like I've already located enough threads [intertextuality between the two Bucolica Carmina; the balance of influence on Boccaccio between Petrarch and Virgil] to make for a strong chapter.

Also filled my time with a little research into the Latin eclogue[s] of Dante, written in the form of letters to Giovanni del Virgilio; withdrawn from the Store the definitive edition of the correspondence between the two by Wicksteed and Gardner. As these obviously predate both Petrarch's and Boccaccio's my intention is to include my discussion of them in the first chapter of my study, which will basically chart the history of Virgilian pastoral through the Middle Ages. The thesis now is based on the pastoral tendency of these three great writers of the trecento — as a phenomenon, I suppose — and Andrew has given his approval.

My three previous chapters have now been proof–read and obviously require a little rewriting — generally for the sake of clarity, where I've managed to get a bit tangled up in myself, or where minor inconsistencies exist from one chapter to the next. Will aim to have them all updated before I start any writing on the Boccaccio section.

: 05 Jul 2006 10:02 |  Tags: Classics Eclogues Ma Research |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem