The Scope of Virgil's Influence

Extract

At first sight it might appear that the scope of Virgil's influence had been predetermined from the beginning, as far surpassing that of any classical author. His poems became a school-book within a few years of his death: he is one of the very few Latin writers whose work remained known, without any real break, from the day that it was written until now: his genius was recognized in his own lifetime and onwards with very little question, and wherever Latin has been read at all he has been one of the authors read. More than that, his text has been pored over, annotated, translated, and sedulously imitated, from his own time to ours, sometimes chiefly for antiquarian reasons, but usually with an appreciation of its beauty and a devotion amounting to a cult. This Society has been founded in the belief that Such an influence should be in one way or another permanent, and this conviction in itself raises the consideration of scope: the question, I mean, whether Virgil may be regarded as a European influence, part of the inheritance of European culture at its widest range, or whether there is anything in his poetry which makes him more even than the greatest European classic—one of the very few writers of universal importance. The question is bound up with the whole problem of classical education and how far it should be fundamental in the world-order of the future, which will not be wholly, perhaps not primarily, European.

Another question is relevant to this, though at first sight rather distantly so.