Dr Syrithe Pugh: Chasing Virgil's Gnat

This Graduate Theory Reading Group seminar presents Dr Syrithe Pugh of the University of Aberdeen and a tal entitled, ‘Chasing Virgil's Gnat'.

The Culex is a quirky, entertaining and sophisticated poem, but also an elusive one. Its transmission and reception over the course of two thousand years has shaped and reshaped it, altering both the text itself and its position and significance within literary history. When the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser translated it into English as ‘Virgils Gnat', he believed it to be an early work of Virgil, yet presented it as a ‘riddle rare' allegorising events in his own life.

Modern scholars encounter a Latin text significantly different from the one Spenser knew, and regard it as the work of an anonymous poet of the C1st CE, either playfully or fraudulently impersonating Virgil. The two perspectives seem very distant from one another, and are further separated by a disciplinary divide between the Early Modernists who care about the first and the Classicists who care about the other. Yet Spenser's curious handling and deployment of The Culex, four hundred years ago, may offer clues helping us to a better understanding of the poem today.

We look forward to seeing you all there! If you have any questions, please email Connor at [email protected] and Nilanjana at [email protected].