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Richard Thomas, Michael C.J. Putnam, and Steven L. Tuck
Let me begin by thanking our prize committee, Richard Thomas and Sarah Spence, for their hard work in selecting the winner of the first Alexander G. McKay Prize. Their thoughtful consideration of all the works on Vergilian studies published over the past few years certainly wasn't an easy task.
Second, let me say a word about the Prize itself. The Vergilian Society has never before given a named prize or award, but established this one in honor of our former President Alexander Gordon McKay. Sandy was, I'm sure, known to many of you and his legacy representing the finest traditions of Vergilian scholarship and in the larger sense of the humanities made this honor a natural one. We view this prize as an extension of his legacy.
The call for nominations stated the criteria for the award, "the book that, in the opinion of the prize evaluation committee, makes the greatest contribution toward our understanding and appreciation of Vergil." With their work, The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years, Jan Ziolkowski and Michael Putnam and a team of 25 contributors created a volume gathering texts and translations illustrating responses to Vergil from his lifetime into the Renaissance. It combines these texts, translations, bibliography and commentary into an unusually rich scholarly contribution, which always foregrounds the texts themselves. To state that it is an indispensable anthology and a prodigious work of scholarship understates the work's contribution.
The words of those who have read and reviewed the book provide a sense of the scholarly reaction to this work. "Indispensable" "unprecedented" and "vast" might all be expected in describing a work that spans 1500 years of the reception of Vergil's poetry. The success of this ambitious project is found in the thoughtful comments such as Jasper Griffin's "Fascinating in illuminating the minds of [Virgil's] readers through the ages."
The reaction of those on the Prize committee and here in the Vergilian Society reflects these judgments. It was important to us that the Prize reflect Sandy's legacy: that it be a book significant both to scholars and to students of all stripes. That it be a book that would last--that would be on everyone's shelf for years to come. The Virgilian Tradition fulfilled these requirements admirably. It makes a true contribution to Vergil studies, as the works collected here span the centuries of reception in unprecedented fashion. In its scope, the volume demonstrates how readers of Vergil--poets, teachers, students, and lay readers--responded to him, and as a result, offers something to each of those constituencies today. It is a book to be treasured by student and scholar alike, and will forever change the landscape of Vergilian reception.
For all of these reasons, we in the Vergilian Society are proud to present the 2009 McKay Prize for Vergilian Studies to Professor Jan M. Ziolkowski of Harvard University and Professor Michael C.J. Putnam of Brown University for their work, The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years.