DIRAE · A new edition and commentary on the pseudo-Virgilian Dirae

A new edition and commentary on the pseudo-Virgilian Dirae

The Dirae and the Lydia are two Latin poems transmitted in the manuscripts under the single title of Dirae as part of the so-called Appendix Vergiliana; they are entangled in numerous problems and uncertainties. First of all, the poems are among the most corrupt Latin poetic texts surviving from antiquity, which in itself poses a serious obstacle to any interpretation. Because of their joint transmission, the Dirae and the Lydia had been considered a single poem until late eighteenth century (and sometimes still are); yet even when one recognises them as separate texts, their mutual relationship remains elusive (are they by the same poet? what is their relative chronology?). Since the traditional ascription to Virgil is untenable, the poems are technically anonymous, and their period of composition has likewise proved controversial, with the effect that they lack secure links to any specific context of production. As a result, scholars have been wary to engage closely with the Dirae and the Lydia: there has been no full-scale modern commentary on the poems, and they are all but ignored in most synoptic accounts of Latin poetry. The objective of DIRAE has been two-fold: (1) to create a tool, in the form of a comprehensive line-by-line commentary, that would enable readers to navigate the extremely difficult text of the Dirae and the Lydia; (2) to produce an overarching scholarly narrative that would situate the poems in a specific literary and historical context. By doing so, DIRAE aims to bring the Dirae and the Lydia within the orbit of current classical scholarship, as well as making the poems accessible to wider audiences. The project’s outputs include radically improved critical editions of the Dirae and the Lydia, detailed textual, philological and literary commentaries on both poems, and in-depth introductory essays analysing their literary and historical background. Among the most important research conclusions are the following. (1) The Dirae and the Lydia are indeed two separate poems, in all probability by the same author, possibly Valerius Cato. (2) Their most likely period of composition can be established as circa 45–35 B.C. (3) Both poems systematically engage with Greek bucolic, both Theocritean and post-Theocritean. (4) The Dirae closely reflects the circumstances and aftermath of the dramatic land reallocation of 41 B.C. These findings mean that the Dirae and the Lydia belong to a crucial period in the socio-political and literary history of Rome. The Dirae and the Lydia thus become important pieces of evidence that can shed light on the early development stages of Augustan poetry, and especially on the literary and historical context of Virgil’s Eclogues.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз