Return to Bibliography of Willa Cather's Readings
Bibliography: Georgics by Virgil
- Title
- Georgics
- Author
- Virgil
- Date
- Genre
- poetry
- Note Source
- Letter #0137; My Antonia Scholarly Edition, note 1, note 197
- Note Relating to Cather
In a letter, Cather says that seeing farmers in fields around Naples reminds her of the Georgics.
According to a note in My Antonia, "It is very likely that she read Virgil's Georgics in Lincoln, from which she drew the "Optima dies... prima fugit" quotation [the novel's epigraph] that provides a haunting theme for Jim's memories of his youth and college years" (Georgics Book III, lines 66-67). Jim studies the text with Gaston Cleric, with particular emphasis on Book III, lines 10-12: "for I shall be the first, if I live, to bring the Muse into my country."
