Virgil, 1700–1760

I n his “Author’s Preface” to The Mythology and Fables of the Ancients, Explain’d from History (1739), Abbé Banier argued that the ancient world and its literature were a ubiquitous presence in eighteenth-century life. Pointing to the profusion of relics from ancient times—from poetry to monuments to curios—he claims, “we are daily conversant in the Works of Greeks and Romans , in those of their Poets especially, which we should often be at a loss to understand, were we not acquainted with the Fables to which they are eternally alluding” (v). Believing, therefore, that “‘tis far from being unnecessary to know the History of the Pagan Gods and Fables,” Banier undertakes to supply forgotten details (v). Pope assumes the same currency of the Ancients and their authority. Most famously, his staunchly neoclassical An Essay on Criticism (1711) admonishes potential poets to “Knowwell each Ancient’s proper Character ” and to pore over Homer and Virgil as the pinnacle of human achievement (1: 252; 119): Be Homer ’ s works your Study and Delight , Read them by Day, and meditate by Night, Thence form your Judgment, thence your Maxims bring, And trace the Muses upward to their Spring; Still with It self compar’d , his Text peruse; And let your Comment be the Mantuan Muse. (1: 253–54; 124–29) These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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