Virgil's Georgics: ThoughtCast interviews the poet and translator David Ferry

Summary:

Virgil's Georgics: an interview with poet David Ferry, who recently translated Virgil's second great poem, The Georgics. We're joined by Virgil scholar Richard Thomas, the chair of Harvard's Classics Dept.

Website:

http://www.thoughtcast.org

Timely on:

April: April is poetry month! This is an interview with poet David Ferry on his recent translation of Virgil's Georgics.

Tones:

Contemplative, Fresh Air-ish, Thoughtful

Language:

English

Description:

The 17th century English poet John Dryden called Virgil's second poem, The Georgics, the "best poem by the best poet." If you don't read Latin, but want to know what all the fuss is about, tune in.

Noted Cambridge poet David Ferry has recently translated Virgil's Georgics, and he joins Virgil scholar Richard Thomas, the chair of Harvard's Classics Department, 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.

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.

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