Virgil

John Conington

Henry Nettleship

Monica R. Gale

John Conington (1825–69) was a towering figure in Victorian scholarship, not least because of his remarkably sensitive and literate commentaries on Virgil's Aeneid. The three-volume cloth edition of The Works of Virgil, begun by Conington in 1852, has been unavailable for over a century, except in rare second-hand sets. Now, for the first time, the whole of Conington's work is being reissued in a set of six paperback volumes. Each volume includes a new introduction by an established scholar, setting Conington's commentary in context, as well as a general introduction to Conington's work by Philip Hardie, who offers a fresh appreciation of the work.

Georgics

Tija

The Aeneid presents a heroic view of the life of man in all its splendour and anguish, but it is also full of just observation of the details of individual behaviour. It is not yet out of date.

Virgil knows better than to propose solutions to problems that can never be solved. 

It is almost as though Virgil had not the heart to let the villain die a villain. 

He showed them the face of hope and kept his misery deep in his heart.

I have given them an empire that will know no end. 

He was like a snake which has fed on poisonous herbs and hidden all winter in the cold earth, but now it emerges into the light, casts its slough and is renewed. 

Georgics quotes

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