MOUSEION - Memorial University of Newfoundland

BOOK REVIEWs/COMPTEs RENDUS [99
Grounding their research on these recent findings, this group of
scholars presents an Epicurean reading of Virgil's poetry. Not everyone
will be fully convinced by some of the arguments put forward in this
collection of essays. Nevertheless each article is of very good quality
and will engage the reader. offering food for thought.
The book is organized in a chronological order, the Appendix Virgiliana.
Eclogues. Georgics. and the Aeneid. Only the last two essays
explore the Epicurean affiliations of other Augustan poets (Horace and
Propertius), and one feels that the organization of the book suffers from
the uneven attention devoted to Virgil (14 essays on Virgil and only 2 on
other Augustan poets).
The first three articles of the collection are dedicated to the "early
Vergil." Francesca Longo Auricchio and Diskin Clay discuss Catalepton
5 and the imagery of the "calm harbor of philosophy." In particular.
Clay argues for the authenticity of Catalepton 5 on the grounds that the
image in CataJ. 5.8-10 is drawn from Epicurus' injunction to Pythocles
to flee paideia. which in turn is modeled on the Homeric episode of the
Sirens in Odyssey [2. More boldly. Chambert offers a thoroughly Epicurean
reading of the Culex. I was not fully persuaded that the story of
Eurydice (Culex 268-95) reconciles "the elegiac and the romantic tendencies
characteristic of Alexandrian poetry ... with the pessimistic vision
of love that Lucretius advocates" (46). as the author suggests. After
all. the equation of love with madness and folly is not solely Epicurean.
Similarly. the praise of a bucolic life which frames the tale of the Culex
can not and should not be explained solely as an endorsement of Epicurean
philosophy. There was a long tradition of pastoral poetry from
which Virgil draws and which seems to be unrelated to Epicureanism.
From the Appendix Virgiliana we move on to the Eclogues and the
Georgics. Davis. in his "Consolation in the Bucolic Mode: The Epicurean
Cadence of Vergil's First Eclogue." offers a compelling reading of Eclogue
I and argues convincingly that the rhetorical structure of the
poem "rests on the foundation of consolatory motifs" (63) which have
an Epicurean cadence. With W.R. Johnson we turn to one of the most
enigmatic (and most discussed) passages of the Georgics: the description
of the Corycian gardener at the end of book 4. There is much of inter'est
in this piece (the discussion on Leopardi included). but the ending is
somewhat abrupt and the authol' does not fully explain how and why
the Corycian Gardener (and his garden) becomes a reflection of the tension
between Virgil's Epicureanism and Virgil's role as an Augustan
poet.
Marcello Gigante's article occupies the place of honor in the collection.
the "middle." "Virgil in the Shadow of Vesuvius" is an extremely
learned piece in which a thorough analysis of the evidence of Virgilian