The Virgil Society

THE Virgil Society was founded in 1943, and its first President, the poet T.S. Eliot, delivered What is a Classic? as his Presidential Address in the following year. The purpose of the Society was and is to unite all those who cherish the central educational tradition of Western Europe. Of that tradition Virgil is the symbol. Membership is open to all those who are in sympathy, whether they read Latin or not.

There are normally five or six meetings each year in London, held on Saturday afternoons in Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU.

The speakers include both amateur and professional scholars, many of them Virgilians of international repute. Lectures are followed by refreshments, giving an opportunity to meet the speaker and other members of the Society.

Most lectures are published in full in the Proceedings of the Virgil Society, which also include some reviews of works relevant to Virgil. There is also a Newsletter, which appears twice a year.

MEETINGS FOR 2015-2016

All meetings this year will take place in Senate House, South Block, Room G22/26 (exc. December 5th, see below)

Saturday, October 24th at 2.30 pm
DISCUSSION MEETING led by John Hazel
How Virgil's poetry sounded
(please bring a text of Aeneid I, and all your queries!)

Saturday, December 5th at 2.30 pm in Room 349
Calypso Nash
Fatum and fortuna: religion and philosophy in Virgil's Aeneid

Saturday, January 23rd at 2.30 pm
Sheldon Brammall
The Shaping of the Virgilian Canon: Joseph Scaliger and the ‘Appendix Vergiliana’

Saturday, March 5th at 2.30 pm
Anton Powell
Virgil and Neptune: defying Homer?

Saturday, May 14th
11.30 Reading the poet: Aeneid II
(Virgil Society members led by John Hazel)
LUNCH
2.30 pm Annual General Meeting
3.00 Ahuvia Kahane
‘Vitae’ and ‘Mortes’: Virgil’s Biography and the Parity of Life and Words

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