Gilbert Highet was a legendary teacher at Columbia University, admired for his scholarship and his charisma as a lecturer. Poets in a Landscape is his delightful exploration of both
Latin literature and the Italian landscape. As Highet writes in his introduction, “I have endeavored to recall some of the greatest Roman poets by describing the places were they lived,
recreating their characters and evoking the essence of their work.” The poets are Catullus, Vergil, Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid, and Juvenal. Highet sketches the stories of the poets’ lives and
fills in the historical background, while offering crisp modern translations of their finest work and memorably vivid descriptions of the natural world. The result is an entirely sui generis
amalgam of travel writing, biography, criticism, and pure poetry—altogether an unexcelled introduction to the world of the classics.
