Virgil

These two volumes provide a commentary, with text, on Virgil's Georgics, a poem in four books probably written between 35 and 29 BC. The introduction, in Volume 1, treats the poem's historical background and its relationship to the early years of Augustan Rome, Virgil's use of prior literary material, his stylistic and metrical expertise, and questions of poetic structure. There is also a section interpreting the poem in light of recent scholarship, which seeks to consider the poem as part of the broad unity of Virgil's career, rather than from a narrow didactic approach. A new Latin text of the poem is followed by extensive line-by-line commentary, explaining difficult passages, interpreting poetic intent, and tracing the influence of Virgil's Greek and Roman antecedents. A subject index and indexes of important Greek and Latin words conclude each volume.
Professor Thomas describes the Georgics as 'perhaps the most difficult, certainly the most controversial, poem in Roman literature'.