KLINGNER, F.,
VIRGIL. Bucolica. Georgica. Aeneis.
Artemis Verlag, Zürich / Stuttgart, 1967. 607p. Original blue cloth with dust wrps. Spine gilt titled. Dust wrps to spine a bit stained and to head spine a bit damaged (repaired with acid free adhesive tape). ‘Obviously, this big book is an event: here is Klingner’s mature judgement of Virgil. It is not, however, a work of synthesis, a synoptic view of Virgil’s development and total achievement such as some of Klingner’s earlier articles had seemed to foreshadow. Nor does it deal (save in various details) with the past or present literature of the subject. Rather it presents, as Klingner declares in his preface, the results of a life-time’s preoccupation with Virgil’s works and gives us the many separate observations - especially the discoveries, the new things yet unnoticed - that he has made over the years. Some of these have already been published and are here reprinted: his famous article on the first eclogue, for example, and the whole of his recent book on the ‘Georgics’. Most of the section on the ‘Eclogues’, however, and the whole ‘Aeneid’ section (231) pages are new or some 377 (new) as opposed to 220 reprinted pages of text. One can perhaps debate the justification of the reprints: for future Virgiliana, however, it is a distinct advantage to have all Klingner’s views on all three Virgilian works in one compact volume. I personally regret, nevertheless, that we do not have the synoptic work, the exposition of the ‘Einheit’ of Vigil’s oeuvre or of his full development, which Klingner was so well equipped to give us. But we must be thankful for what we do have, a storehouse of aperçus and insights, shrewd analyses, novel, yet convincing observations, a wonderful cross between essay and commentary, exegesis and criticism.’ (BROOKS OTIS in Gnomon, 1969, p.554).
€ 35.00
(Antiquarian)