It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back again to retrace ones steps to the upper air - theres the rub the task.
~ Virgil
Prologue: Biography
Publius Vergilius Maro (October 15 70 BC September 21 19 BC) in English he is usually referred to as Virgil was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan Era (c. 43 BC 18 AD). His most noted works of Latin literature include the Eclogues (or Bucolics) the Georgics and the epic Aeneid. There are many minor poems sometimes credited to him including the Appendix Vergiliana. Virgil is generally regarded as one of Italys greatest poets. His magnum opus Aeneid is the national epic of ancient Rome from the time of its composition even to this day. Patterned after Homers Iliad and Odyssey the Aeneid chronicles the Trojan expatriate Aeneas as he fights to seize his destiny by reaching the coasts of Italyin Roman mythology Aeneids deeds constitute the founding act of Rome. Virgils contributions on Western literature most importantly the Divine Comedy of Dante (1308-21) in which Virgil appears as Dantes guide through hell and purgatory has had timeless appeal.
Good language = good grammar rhetoric and logic
The traditional college liberal arts education had as its foundation grammar rhetoric and logic which are all associated with language. Individually these disciplines institutes its own rules for the utilization of language each by reference to a different paradigm of merit or certitude which defines language as a mechanism of thought or communication. In all three disciplines discourse is regulated in the entirety. Their association to each other represents the relative aspects of each part of languagethe emotional the social and the intellectual.
The tradition of the great books used to be the tradition of the liberal arts where all substantive disciplines were welcomed to the arena of ideas and using Socratic dialectic rigorously debated to verify the authenticity of ideas. Their range used to involve not only the magnitude of the ideas or problems affecting them but also in their proper distinction as derivative of liberal art at least in the idealized utopian sense I outlined above. Many of the great books are expositions of logic or rhetoric particularly those volumes on Plato Aristotle Plutarch Augustine Hobbes Montaigne Gibbon Tolstoy Melville and the subject of this essay Virgil to cite some of my favorites on this subject. However none of the volumes in Great Books represent a treatise on grammar. Why? Although every volume of the canon all basically represent even where they do not explain the unusual refinements of the language arts; and most of them particularly the volumes of science philosophy and theology and even some of the poetical works evidently express the problems of discourse and the stratagems that have been established to explain them. In one sense language is the modus operandi of grammar rhetoric and logic and they are deliberately critical in its use.
To Virgil some aspects of the human condition are inexpressible in human language even as they are powerless of being fully comprehended by human thought. My vision" Dante says when he arrives at the mystic rose of Paradise with his guide Virgil was greater than our speech." In this sublime transcendent state such awareness they possessed was of the highest matters and the first principles of things." Plato thinks that this elevated cognitive state does not admit of exposition like other branches of knowledge." In Dantes Seventh Letter he surpasses this singular level of knowledge to say that no man of intelligence will venture to express his philosophical views in language." Why? Because metaphysics or philosophy integrated with spirituality is beyond this physical earthly realm thus beyond language.
David in Psalm 139:6-7 expressed this incomprehensible metaphysical state in this manner: You have enclosed me behind and before And laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high I cannot attain to it. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?…"
Virgil in antiquity
The literary works of Virgil virtually at the moment of publication revolutionized Latin poetry in a similar way that Dantes works would revolutionize Italian poetry 1300 years later. The Eclogues Georgics and especially the Aeneid became standard texts in school curricula with which all educated Romans were familiar. Poets subsequent to Virgil frequently refer intertextually to his works to create meaning in their own poetry. For example the Augustan poet Ovid parodies the opening lines of the Aeneid in Amores 1.1.12 and his synopsis of the Aeneas story in Book 14 of the Metamorphoses referred to as the mini-Aeneid has been regarded as a very significant example of post-Virgilian rejoinder to the epic genre. Lucans epic the Bellum Civile has been interpreted as an anti-Virgilian epic absent supernatural references considering historical events and deviating radically from Virgilian epic tradition.
Writers down through the ages like Statius Silius Augustine Aquinas in part as a consequence of his so-called Messianic Fourth Ecloguecommonly interpreted later to have predicted the birth of Jesus Christ 40-50 years in advance
Now is come the last age of Cumaean song; the great line of the centuries begins anew. Now the Virgin returns the reign of Saturn returns; now a new generation descends from heaven on high. Only do you pure Lucina smile on the birth of the child under whom the iron brood shall at last cease and a golden race spring up throughout the world! Your own Apollo now is king!
~ Song of the Cumaean Sibyl" from Virgils Eclogues IV
Virgil in late antiquity and Middle Ages
During the sixth century when the Western Roman Empire began to collapse well-educated men recognized that Virgil was a master poet. Gregory of Tours (538-594) read Virgil whom he quotes favorably in his writings together with some other Latin poets though the writer warns that we ought not to relate their lying fables lest we fall under sentence of eternal death. Virgils Aeneid endured as part of the Latin literary canon of the Middle Ages and retained its prominence as the magnificent epic of the Latin Classics and of those who considered themselves to be of Roman derivation such as the English. Preserving religious meaning as it designates the founding of a Holy City.
Virgils fourth Eclogue was often interpreted as a prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ. It has been debated that this view originated in a necessity of medieval scholars to resolve Virgils pagan background with the extraordinary honor in which they held his works therefore the idea of Virgil the prophet was solidified throughout the Middle Ages. This understanding is defended by some scholars today notably Richard Thomas Robert Fitzgerald and William Harris among others. Even classical writers like Cicero Augustine Aquinas and others too acknowledged Virgils purity and skillful use of language and his moral worldview as a literary precursor to Christianity.
So inspired and legendary was Virgil that 1300 years later after the masters death Dante made Virgil his guide in Hell and through most of Purgatory in his masterpiece The Divine Comedy. Dante also references Virgil in De vulgari eloquentia along with Ovid Lucan and Statius as one of the four regulati poetae (ii vi 7). The most regarded of the existing manuscripts of Virgils works include the Vergilius Augusteus (c. 4th century) the Vergilius Vaticanus (c. 400) and the Vergilius Romanus (5th century).
Epilogue: Virgil in Modern Times
How is the ancient Roman poet Virgil relevant in modern times? Virgils contributions to Western literature and poetry is one of the singular treasures of history. Beyond his sublime use of language to convey heroic ideas and revolutionary ideals like those portrayed in his Aeneid is his virtual prophetic lines particularly from his Song of the Cumaean Sibyl from Virgils Eclogues Book IV perhaps 50 years before the birth of Jesus Christ is to this day one of the milestone examples of Western literature.
Regarding the necessity of language for any society conservative talk show host Michael Savage has for virtually 30 years championed the idea Boarders Language and Culture" as a viable political policy amounting to a wall of protection to maintain American exceptionalism culture and our strong Judeo-Christian traditions. For decades he has stood alone largely mocked and ignored by the socialist and progressive Left like a modern day John the Baptista voice crying out in the wilderness. Yet in the Age of Progressivism or what I call the Progressive Revolution" can 22=5 is Black English Ebonics bi-lingual education and multi-cultural education a sure and effective pathway to secure the American dream or is it a Faustian bargain with the devil by Leftists designed to funnel the collective hopes dreams and aspirations of tens of millions of minorities" into the abyss of perpetual frustration miseducation genocidal life choices and tragic failure?
One primary reason why the literary Classics are so essential for any thinking man for any person who calls himself truly educated philosophical logical and a possessor of Reason (e.g. a person who can be convinced when their ideas are proven wrong or incomplete) is because the literary Classics are a singular statement of first principles of which language is the principal transmitter of everything that is known or will be known. On this point Virgil wrote: Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas Happy is the one who is able to know the causes of things (Georgics II 490).
History records that in the early 1920s another Latin (Italian) used language in the opposite way of Virgil not to inspire heal educate and teach people to triumph over the vicissitudes of Life but to pervert demagogue and ultimately to enslave the masses. This tyrant turned Italy into a fascist State allied with Hitler launching World War II and thus assured the annihilation of a once great Roman empire with these words which seem derivative from the pit of HellEverything inside the State. Nothing outside the State. Nothing against the State. These were the words and the poison ideas of the fascist state of Mussolinis Italy.
This is also the mantra and the worldview of the Progressive Revolution that exists under the administration of President Barack Obama and has existed since the anti-Christian genocide of the French Revolution (1789-99) which concurrently witnessed the advent of liberalism socialism the modern Left the death of Reason and truth and origin of a demonic worldview that is perpetually at war against God and biblical principles. If Reason is to prevail and a pure incorruptible language be propagated the world must forsake the demagogue Mussolini and like Elisha did with Elijah take up the mantle of the true Prophet Virgil.
*N.B.: This essay is based in part on ideas from Great Books of the Western World Robert Maynard Hutchins Editor-in-Chief (University of Chicago 1952) Vol. 2 chap. 45Language and Vol. 13Virgil.
It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back again to retrace ones steps to the upper air - theres the rub the task.
~ Virgil
Prologue: Biography
Publius Vergilius Maro (October 15 70 BC September 21 19 BC) in English he is usually referred to as Virgil was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan Era (c. 43 BC 18 AD). His most noted works of Latin literature include the Eclogues (or Bucolics) the Georgics and the epic Aeneid. There are many minor poems sometimes credited to him including the Appendix Vergiliana. Virgil is generally regarded as one of Italys greatest poets. His magnum opus Aeneid is the national epic of ancient Rome from the time of its composition even to this day. Patterned after Homers Iliad and Odyssey the Aeneid chronicles the Trojan expatriate Aeneas as he fights to seize his destiny by reaching the coasts of Italyin Roman mythology Aeneids deeds constitute the founding act of Rome. Virgils contributions on Western literature most importantly the Divine Comedy of Dante (1308-21) in which Virgil appears as Dantes guide through hell and purgatory has had timeless appeal.
Good language = good grammar rhetoric and logic
The traditional college liberal arts education had as its foundation grammar rhetoric and logic which are all associated with language. Individually these disciplines institutes its own rules for the utilization of language each by reference to a different paradigm of merit or certitude which defines language as a mechanism of thought or communication. In all three disciplines discourse is regulated in the entirety. Their association to each other represents the relative aspects of each part of languagethe emotional the social and the intellectual.
The tradition of the great books used to be the tradition of the liberal arts where all substantive disciplines were welcomed to the arena of ideas and using Socratic dialectic rigorously debated to verify the authenticity of ideas. Their range used to involve not only the magnitude of the ideas or problems affecting them but also in their proper distinction as derivative of liberal art at least in the idealized utopian sense I outlined above. Many of the great books are expositions of logic or rhetoric particularly those volumes on Plato Aristotle Plutarch Augustine Hobbes Montaigne Gibbon Tolstoy Melville and the subject of this essay Virgil to cite some of my favorites on this subject. However none of the volumes in Great Books represent a treatise on grammar. Why? Although every volume of the canon all basically represent even where they do not explain the unusual refinements of the language arts; and most of them particularly the volumes of science philosophy and theology and even some of the poetical works evidently express the problems of discourse and the stratagems that have been established to explain them. In one sense language is the modus operandi of grammar rhetoric and logic and they are deliberately critical in its use.
To Virgil some aspects of the human condition are inexpressible in human language even as they are powerless of being fully comprehended by human thought. My vision" Dante says when he arrives at the mystic rose of Paradise with his guide Virgil was greater than our speech." In this sublime transcendent state such awareness they possessed was of the highest matters and the first principles of things." Plato thinks that this elevated cognitive state does not admit of exposition like other branches of knowledge." In Dantes Seventh Letter he surpasses this singular level of knowledge to say that no man of intelligence will venture to express his philosophical views in language." Why? Because metaphysics or philosophy integrated with spirituality is beyond this physical earthly realm thus beyond language.
David in Psalm 139:6-7 expressed this incomprehensible metaphysical state in this manner: You have enclosed me behind and before And laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high I cannot attain to it. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?…"
Virgil in antiquity
The literary works of Virgil virtually at the moment of publication revolutionized Latin poetry in a similar way that Dantes works would revolutionize Italian poetry 1300 years later. The Eclogues Georgics and especially the Aeneid became standard texts in school curricula with which all educated Romans were familiar. Poets subsequent to Virgil frequently refer intertextually to his works to create meaning in their own poetry. For example the Augustan poet Ovid parodies the opening lines of the Aeneid in Amores 1.1.12 and his synopsis of the Aeneas story in Book 14 of the Metamorphoses referred to as the mini-Aeneid has been regarded as a very significant example of post-Virgilian rejoinder to the epic genre. Lucans epic the Bellum Civile has been interpreted as an anti-Virgilian epic absent supernatural references considering historical events and deviating radically from Virgilian epic tradition.
Writers down through the ages like Statius Silius Augustine Aquinas in part as a consequence of his so-called Messianic Fourth Ecloguecommonly interpreted later to have predicted the birth of Jesus Christ 40-50 years in advance
Now is come the last age of Cumaean song; the great line of the centuries begins anew. Now the Virgin returns the reign of Saturn returns; now a new generation descends from heaven on high. Only do you pure Lucina smile on the birth of the child under whom the iron brood shall at last cease and a golden race spring up throughout the world! Your own Apollo now is king!
~ Song of the Cumaean Sibyl" from Virgils Eclogues IV
Virgil in late antiquity and Middle Ages
During the sixth century when the Western Roman Empire began to collapse well-educated men recognized that Virgil was a master poet. Gregory of Tours (538-594) read Virgil whom he quotes favorably in his writings together with some other Latin poets though the writer warns that we ought not to relate their lying fables lest we fall under sentence of eternal death. Virgils Aeneid endured as part of the Latin literary canon of the Middle Ages and retained its prominence as the magnificent epic of the Latin Classics and of those who considered themselves to be of Roman derivation such as the English. Preserving religious meaning as it designates the founding of a Holy City.
Virgils fourth Eclogue was often interpreted as a prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ. It has been debated that this view originated in a necessity of medieval scholars to resolve Virgils pagan background with the extraordinary honor in which they held his works therefore the idea of Virgil the prophet was solidified throughout the Middle Ages. This understanding is defended by some scholars today notably Richard Thomas Robert Fitzgerald and William Harris among others. Even classical writers like Cicero Augustine Aquinas and others too acknowledged Virgils purity and skillful use of language and his moral worldview as a literary precursor to Christianity.
So inspired and legendary was Virgil that 1300 years later after the masters death Dante made Virgil his guide in Hell and through most of Purgatory in his masterpiece The Divine Comedy. Dante also references Virgil in De vulgari eloquentia along with Ovid Lucan and Statius as one of the four regulati poetae (ii vi 7). The most regarded of the existing manuscripts of Virgils works include the Vergilius Augusteus (c. 4th century) the Vergilius Vaticanus (c. 400) and the Vergilius Romanus (5th century).
Epilogue: Virgil in Modern Times
How is the ancient Roman poet Virgil relevant in modern times? Virgils contributions to Western literature and poetry is one of the singular treasures of history. Beyond his sublime use of language to convey heroic ideas and revolutionary ideals like those portrayed in his Aeneid is his virtual prophetic lines particularly from his Song of the Cumaean Sibyl from Virgils Eclogues Book IV perhaps 50 years before the birth of Jesus Christ is to this day one of the milestone examples of Western literature.
Regarding the necessity of language for any society conservative talk show host Michael Savage has for virtually 30 years championed the idea Boarders Language and Culture" as a viable political policy amounting to a wall of protection to maintain American exceptionalism culture and our strong Judeo-Christian traditions. For decades he has stood alone largely mocked and ignored by the socialist and progressive Left like a modern day John the Baptista voice crying out in the wilderness. Yet in the Age of Progressivism or what I call the Progressive Revolution" can 22=5 is Black English Ebonics bi-lingual education and multi-cultural education a sure and effective pathway to secure the American dream or is it a Faustian bargain with the devil by Leftists designed to funnel the collective hopes dreams and aspirations of tens of millions of minorities" into the abyss of perpetual frustration miseducation genocidal life choices and tragic failure?
One primary reason why the literary Classics are so essential for any thinking man for any person who calls himself truly educated philosophical logical and a possessor of Reason (e.g. a person who can be convinced when their ideas are proven wrong or incomplete) is because the literary Classics are a singular statement of first principles of which language is the principal transmitter of everything that is known or will be known. On this point Virgil wrote: Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas Happy is the one who is able to know the causes of things (Georgics II 490).
History records that in the early 1920s another Latin (Italian) used language in the opposite way of Virgil not to inspire heal educate and teach people to triumph over the vicissitudes of Life but to pervert demagogue and ultimately to enslave the masses. This tyrant turned Italy into a fascist State allied with Hitler launching World War II and thus assured the annihilation of a once great Roman empire with these words which seem derivative from the pit of HellEverything inside the State. Nothing outside the State. Nothing against the State. These were the words and the poison ideas of the fascist state of Mussolinis Italy.
This is also the mantra and the worldview of the Progressive Revolution that exists under the administration of President Barack Obama and has existed since the anti-Christian genocide of the French Revolution (1789-99) which concurrently witnessed the advent of liberalism socialism the modern Left the death of Reason and truth and origin of a demonic worldview that is perpetually at war against God and biblical principles. If Reason is to prevail and a pure incorruptible language be propagated the world must forsake the demagogue Mussolini and like Elisha did with Elijah take up the mantle of the true Prophet Virgil.
*N.B.: This essay is based in part on ideas from Great Books of the Western World Robert Maynard Hutchins Editor-in-Chief (University of Chicago 1952) Vol. 2 chap. 45Language and Vol. 13Virgil.