Wednesday, August 12, 2020
Foreigners
David O. Ross, Jr., Virgil's Elements: Physics and Poetry in the Georgics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), p. 7:
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We are of course foreigners in the Roman world, in language, culture, and thought, as every classicist is aware. We do not feel anything sinister or magical in an ash tree. Infatuation, for us, is the proper concern of psychiatrists. We know what causes violent storms, our hurricanes and tornadoes, and in the case of the former, at least, we know beforehand exactly when and where they will strike; and we have agencies, public and private, to pick up the pieces afterwards and pay insurance claims. Glory is a concept we know only by hearsay, a somewhat archaic notion that has been replaced by notoriety or celebrity.Thanks very much to the kind and generous reader who sent me a copy of Ross' book. I have been out of town and only just received it.
