“Our Vergil” (noster Vergilius), as Seneca claims him with more than a touch of nationalistic pride, was universally acclaimed in the Roman world as the greatest of their poets and a worthy rival of the Greek epic poet, Homer. Virgil's influence on the literature of medieval, renaissance and modern Europe has likewise been incalculable. Virgil's reputation rests on three works: the Eclogues a highly crafted collection of pastoral poems modelled on the Idyls of the Sicilian Greek poet Theocritus; the Georgics (“On husbandry”), a practical handbook on farming matters that is nevertheless deeply informed by larger and more philosophical concerns in the didactic tradition of the early Greek poet Hesiod (Works and Days) and the Roman poet Lucretius (De rerum natura, “On the nature of…

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Citation: Green, Mandy. "Virgil". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 March 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5079, accessed 30 November 2023.]