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RSUH/RGGU Bulletin: “Literary Teory. Linguistics. Cultural Studies”, Series

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Personae doctoris in Virgil’s “Georgics”

https://doi.org/10.28995/2686-7249-2025-2-174-182

Abstract

The paper considers figures of teachers (called personae doctoris by Servius) in Virgil’s “Georgics”. We believe that in Virgil’s poem, for the first time in the genre of didactic epic, not only the didactic poet himself, but also the gods and cultural heroes act as teachers: first of all, Jupiter and Aristeas. Juppiter acts as a teacher of mankind when he ends the Golden age so that people “do not become idle”. Aristaeus shows people the art of bugonia, which in turn was revealed to him by the gods. The fact that gods and men act as teachers is important not only as the Virgil’s genre innovation per se. It also brings us closer to interpreting the poem as a poem about knowledge and teaching. It also proves our previous conclusions that in the Georgics, labor and human existence, despite all obstacles, are not in vain, provided there is the favor of the patron and the instructions of the gods.

About the Author

Olga V. Sharshukova
Russian State University for the Humanities
Russian Federation

Olga V. Sharshukova, Cand. of Sci. (Philology)

6, Miusskaya Sq., Moscow, 125047



References

1. Clare, R J. (1995), “Chiron, Melampus and Tisiphone. Myth and meaning in Virgil’s Plague of Noricum”, Hermathena, no. 158, pp. 99–108.

2. Dalzell, A. (1996), The criticism of didactic poetry. Essays on Lucretius, Virgil, and Ovid, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Canada.

3. Gale, M. (2000), Virgil on the nature of things. The Georgics, Lucretius and the didactic tradition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

4. Sharshukova, O.V. (2023), “Angustae res in Virgil’s Georgics”, Indo-European Linguistics and Classical Philology, no. 27-2, pp. 1266–1278.

5. Volk, K. (2002), The poetics of Latin didactic. Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, Manilius, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

6. Zhmud’, A.Ya. (2000), “Πρῶτοι εὑρεταί – gods or people?”, Hyperboreus: Klassicheskaya filologiya i istoriya, no. 2, pp. 263–278.


Review

For citations:


Sharshukova O.V. Personae doctoris in Virgil’s “Georgics”. RSUH/RGGU Bulletin: “Literary Teory. Linguistics. Cultural Studies”, Series. 2025;(2):174-182. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.28995/2686-7249-2025-2-174-182

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ISSN 2073-6355 (Print)