Green Vergil: Nature and the Environment in Vergil and the Vergilian Tradition

Two Volcanoes and the Climate of Vergil’s Green Poetry

By William Freeman (University of Cambridgeq)

My paper places Vergil’s Eclogues and Georgics in the context of a period of climatic disruption in the Mediterranean, triggered by two volcanic eruptions in the late 40s BCE. The fallout from these eruptions led, in the short term, to spectacular meteorological phenomena and, in the longer term, contributed to a period of agricultural difficulty.

Fierce Groves for Doubtful Times

By Rachael Cullick (Oklahoma State University)

This paper examines the grove of Faunus (Aen. 7.81-91) as part of an Italy seen as liminal space in which the human is entwined with the natural and dangerous divine. The grove is fearsome in its connection to the Underworld but also the place where all Italy “seek answers when in doubtful situations” (7.85-6) and the priest converses with gods and the Underworld itself (7.90-91). The characterization of this landscape opens up new viewpoints for ecocriticism in general and studies of the poem.

From Eco-fascist to Eco-utopian: Twentieth-century Readings of Virgil's Corycian Gardener

By Phoebe Lakin (Harvard University)

Few parts of the notoriously “intractable” Georgics (Batstone 1997: 125) are as perennially contested as the vignette of the Old Man of Tarentum (4.116-48), the anonymous gardener who transforms a vacant lot into a profusion of flowers and fruit trees. This paper examines the reception of this elusive passage through an ecocritical lens.