Our first speaker on September 9 will be Stephen Harrison and will talk on the following topic:

George Buchanan, Silvae 3: Desiderium Lutetiae

This paper presents an account of this poem by the Scot George Buchanan (1506-82), international scholar and teacher, tutor to Mary Queen of Scots and her son James VI, a leader of the Calvinist Scottish Reformation, royal minister, and perhaps the greatest Latin poet born in the British Isles. Silvae 3 (part of a book broadly based on Statius’ homonymous collection) is a work in which Buchanan represents through pastoral allegory his longing to return to Paris, the city where he had spent half his life, and which was written during his detention in Lisbon by the Inquisition (1551-2) on the grounds of unorthodox belief. The paper suggests that Silvae 3 is an intensely composed and highly allusive musical poem, which shows an interesting mixture of classical generic models (e.g., pastoral and elegy) as well as neo-Latin intertexts.

You will need a Columbia ID or a guest access QR to enter the Columbia campus. If you require guest access, please email Paraskevi Martzavou [pm2839@columbia.edu] at least 48 hours before the lecture.