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. Members also receive a Newsletter, which appears twice a year.

PROGRAMME, 2016-17

Saturday 29 October 2016 at 2.30 pm
Room 349, Senate House South Block
DISCUSSION MEETING led by John Hazel
‘The evidence for our knowledge of the way Latin was spoken in Virgil's time’

Saturday 3 December 2016 at 2.30 pm
Room 349, Senate House South Block
Dr Beverley Back (University of Leeds)
‘“Seven Hells” and “Using the Force”: on screen fantasy and teaching the Aeneid’

Saturday 21 January 2017 at 2.30 pm
Room G22/G26, Senate House South Block
Prof. Stephen Heyworth (Wadham College, Oxford)
‘Aeneas the villain’

Saturday 4 March 2017 at 2.30 pm
Room G22/G26, Senate House South Block
Dr Fiachra Mac Góráin (University College, London)
‘Virgil in Friel’s Translations’

Saturday 13 May 2017:
Senate House, South Block Room G22/26
11.30 am: ‘Reading the Poet: Aeneid 12’ (Virgil Society members led by John Hazel)
1 pm: Lunch
2.30 pm: AGM
3 pm: Prof. Niklas Holzberg (University of Munich)
‘From deus absconditus to Soter: Octavian in Virgil and Early Augustan Poetry’  

ALL WELCOME

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