Editing Virgil (section)

{{short description|1st-century-BC Roman poet}}
{{about|the ancient Roman poet|the grammarian|Virgilius Maro Grammaticus|other uses}}
{{EngvarB|date=July 2022}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2022}}
{{Infobox writer
| image            = Virgil mosaic in the Bardo National Museum (Tunis) (12241228546).jpg
| caption          = A 3rd-century Roman [[Virgil Mosaic|mosaic of Virgil]] seated between [[Clio]] and [[Melpomene]] (from [[Hadrumetum]] [Sousse], Tunisia)
| pseudonym        = 
| birth_name       = Publius Vergilius Maro
| birth_date       = 15 October 70 BC
| birth_place      = Andes, [[Cisalpine Gaul]], [[Roman Republic]]
| death_date       = 21 September 19 BC (aged 50)
| death_place      = [[Brindisi|Brundisium]], [[Italy (Roman Empire)|Italy]], [[Roman Empire]]
| occupation       = Poet
| nationality      = [[Roman Empire|Roman]]
| period           = 
| genre            = [[Epic poetry]], [[didactic poetry]], [[pastoral poetry]]
| subject          = 
| movement         = [[Augustan poetry]]
| signature        = 
| notable_works    = ''[[Eclogues]]'' <br> ''[[Georgics]]'' <br> ''[[Aeneid]]''
}}

'''Publius Vergilius Maro''' ({{IPA|la-x-classic|ˈpuːbliʊs wɛrˈɡɪliʊs ˈmaroː|lang|link=yes}}; 15 October 70 BC{{snd}}21 September 19 BC), usually called '''Virgil''' or '''Vergil''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|v|ɜːr|dʒ|ɪ|l}} {{respell|VUR|jil}}) in English, was an [[ancient Rome|ancient Roman]] poet of the [[Augustan literature (ancient Rome)|Augustan period]]. He composed three of the most famous poems in [[Latin literature]]: the ''[[Eclogues]]'' (or ''Bucolics''), the ''[[Georgics]]'', and the [[Epic poetry|epic]] ''[[Aeneid]]''. A number of minor poems, collected in the ''[[Appendix Vergiliana]]'', were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars generally regard these works as spurious, with the possible exception of a few short pieces.

Already acclaimed in his own lifetime as a classic author, Virgil rapidly replaced [[Ennius]] and other earlier authors as a standard school text, and stood as the most popular Latin poet through late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and early modernity, exerting inestimable influence on all subsequent [[Western literature]]. [[Geoffrey Chaucer]] assigned Virgil a uniquely prominent position among all the celebrities of human history in ''[[The House of Fame]]'' (1374–85), describing him as standing ''on a pilere / that was of tinned yren clere'' ("on a pillar that was of bright tin-plated iron"), and in the ''[[Divine Comedy]]'', in which Virgil appears as the author's guide through [[Hell]] and [[Purgatory]], [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]] pays tribute to Virgil with the words {{lang|it|tu se' solo colui da cu'io tolsi / lo bello stile che m'ha fatto onore}} (''Inf.'' I.86–7) ("thou art alone the one from whom I took the beautiful style that has done honour to me"). In the 20th Century, [[T. S. Eliot]] famously began a lecture on the subject "What Is a Classic?" by asserting as self-evidently true that "whatever the definition we arrive at, it cannot be one which excludes Virgil – we may say confidently that it must be one which will expressly reckon with him."<ref>{{cite book |last=Eliot |first=T. S. |editor1-last=Chinitz |editor1-first=David E. |editor2-last=Schuchard |editor2-first=Ronald |chapter=What Is a Classic? |title=The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical Edition |volume=6: The War Years, 1940–1946 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |pages=669–687}}</ref>