Virgil Made English: The Decline of Classical Authority

Virgil Made English traces Virgil’s fate from the Interregnum through mid-eighteenth-century England and beyond by examining translations, imitations, adaptations, and discussions of the poet and some of his fellow Ancients. Along the way, it examines English and French neoclassical theorists, demonstrating the unacknowledged gap between theory and practice in this period. The central argument here concerns the decline in influence and authority of Virgil and the Ancients in this “neoclassical” period.  The study also shows how literary features and notions about literature’s historical and social function that are associated with the eighteenth century can be traced back through mid-seventeenth century rejection of classical precepts and examples.