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[ SOLD OUT ] PUTNAM, M.C.J., Virgil's Pastoral Art. Studies in the Eclogues. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1970. XV,398p. Original blue cloth. Spine silver titled. Library stamps to edges. Library stamps, stickers, etc. to endpages. Endpages a bit loose from binding, showing underneath tissue near half title. ‘P. (…) is concerned both with the individual poems as separate entities and with the collection as a whole, and the nine chapters in which he submits the Eclogues to structural and linguistic analysis (…) are preceded by a brief introduction (…) in which he anticipates his general conclusions. (…) P. Rejects the views that the ‘Eclogues’ are mere (and often inferior) variations on Theocritean theme, veiled allegorical references to contemporary personages and events, of just a form of ‘escapist’ literature (…). Instead, he sees them as in part a form of ‘social commentary’, whose aim is ‘to define the place and status of the individual’ (and the poet in particular) ‘in an increasingly intricate and more restrictive society’(…), and in part as an attempt to extend the boundaries of pastoral as a literary genre (p.15), since all Classical poetry involves to some extent the struggle of the creative writer to free himself from the strait-jacket of the ‘lex operis’. (…) The advantage of this interpretation is that it allows to the light and graceful ‘Eclogues’ a new seriousness.’ (EDNA JENKINSON in The Journal of Roman Studies, 1971, pp.304-305). (Antiquarian) (approx. delivery time: undeliverable) ISBN: 9780691061788