Stefan Tilg
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199576944
- eISBN:
- 9780191722486
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199576944.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
No issue in scholarship on the ancient novel has been discussed as hotly as the origin of the Greek love novel, also known as the ‘ideal’ novel. The present book proposes a new solution to this old ...
More
No issue in scholarship on the ancient novel has been discussed as hotly as the origin of the Greek love novel, also known as the ‘ideal’ novel. The present book proposes a new solution to this old problem. It argues that the genre had a personal inventor, Chariton of Aphrodisias, and that he wrote the first love novel, Narratives about Callirhoe, in the mid‐first century AD. This conclusion is drawn on the basis of two converging lines of argument, one from literary history, another from Chariton's poetics. A revisitation of the literary‐historical background provides the basis for further analysis: among other things, it considers Chariton's milieu at Aphrodisias (especially the local cult of Aphrodite), the dating of other early novels, and Chariton's potential authorship of the fragmentarily preserved novels Metiochus and Parthenope and Chione. Chariton's status as the inventor of the Greek love novel, suggested by the literary‐historical evidence, finds further support in his poetics. I argue that Narratives about Callirhoe is characterized by an unusual effort of self‐definition, which can be best explained as a consequence of coming to terms with a new form of writing. The book is rounded off by a study of the motif of Rumour in Chariton and its derivation from a surprising model, Virgil's Aeneid. This part also makes a significant contribution to the reception of Latin literature in the Greek world.Less
No issue in scholarship on the ancient novel has been discussed as hotly as the origin of the Greek love novel, also known as the ‘ideal’ novel. The present book proposes a new solution to this old problem. It argues that the genre had a personal inventor, Chariton of Aphrodisias, and that he wrote the first love novel, Narratives about Callirhoe, in the mid‐first century AD. This conclusion is drawn on the basis of two converging lines of argument, one from literary history, another from Chariton's poetics. A revisitation of the literary‐historical background provides the basis for further analysis: among other things, it considers Chariton's milieu at Aphrodisias (especially the local cult of Aphrodite), the dating of other early novels, and Chariton's potential authorship of the fragmentarily preserved novels Metiochus and Parthenope and Chione. Chariton's status as the inventor of the Greek love novel, suggested by the literary‐historical evidence, finds further support in his poetics. I argue that Narratives about Callirhoe is characterized by an unusual effort of self‐definition, which can be best explained as a consequence of coming to terms with a new form of writing. The book is rounded off by a study of the motif of Rumour in Chariton and its derivation from a surprising model, Virgil's Aeneid. This part also makes a significant contribution to the reception of Latin literature in the Greek world.
Scott McGill
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195175646
- eISBN:
- 9780199789337
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195175646.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The Virgilian centos, in which authors reconnect discrete lines taken from Virgil's Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid to create new poems, are some of the most striking texts to survive from antiquity. ...
More
The Virgilian centos, in which authors reconnect discrete lines taken from Virgil's Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid to create new poems, are some of the most striking texts to survive from antiquity. This book examines the twelve mythological and secular examples, which probably date from c.200-c.530. While verbal games, the centos deserve to be taken seriously for what they disclose about Virgil's reception, late-antique literary culture, and other important historical and theoretical topics in literary criticism. As radically intertextual works, the centos are particularly valuable sites for investigating topics in allusion studies: when can and should audiences read texts allusively? What is the role of the author and the reader in creating allusions? How does one determine the functions of allusions? This book explores these and other questions, and in the process comes into dialogue with major critical issues.Less
The Virgilian centos, in which authors reconnect discrete lines taken from Virgil's Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid to create new poems, are some of the most striking texts to survive from antiquity. This book examines the twelve mythological and secular examples, which probably date from c.200-c.530. While verbal games, the centos deserve to be taken seriously for what they disclose about Virgil's reception, late-antique literary culture, and other important historical and theoretical topics in literary criticism. As radically intertextual works, the centos are particularly valuable sites for investigating topics in allusion studies: when can and should audiences read texts allusively? What is the role of the author and the reader in creating allusions? How does one determine the functions of allusions? This book explores these and other questions, and in the process comes into dialogue with major critical issues.
Mia de Kuijper
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195171631
- eISBN:
- 9780199871353
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195171631.003.0021
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Macro- and Monetary Economics
Looking for underlying drivers to make sense of the present and to foretell the future is a time-tested trick. That is why this chapter (and the book, in various other places) quotes Virgil's Aeneid, ...
More
Looking for underlying drivers to make sense of the present and to foretell the future is a time-tested trick. That is why this chapter (and the book, in various other places) quotes Virgil's Aeneid, a 2000-year-old story about underlying drivers and inevitable trends. Like Virgil's Romans, we are in tempestuous circumstances. Humanity has often found itself in situations of rapid change before. And has learned that, with hindsight, the underlying drivers and the changes they caused were very clear. As largely unforeseen changes roil companies, industries, global economies and financial markets, it is possible to step back right now, in the midst of tumult, and discern the patterns that will later seem obvious with hindsight. Like Virgil, this book has argued that only by understanding the underlying forces can we recognize the source of power within a new era. And only then can we successfully profit from the momentum that these forces create. That is the logic flow of this book. Readers can benefit, right now, from applying this understanding to better anticipate the effects of transparency and to maximize returns for their companies or shareholders, and even to enhance the returns on their own human capital as well.Less
Looking for underlying drivers to make sense of the present and to foretell the future is a time-tested trick. That is why this chapter (and the book, in various other places) quotes Virgil's Aeneid, a 2000-year-old story about underlying drivers and inevitable trends. Like Virgil's Romans, we are in tempestuous circumstances. Humanity has often found itself in situations of rapid change before. And has learned that, with hindsight, the underlying drivers and the changes they caused were very clear. As largely unforeseen changes roil companies, industries, global economies and financial markets, it is possible to step back right now, in the midst of tumult, and discern the patterns that will later seem obvious with hindsight. Like Virgil, this book has argued that only by understanding the underlying forces can we recognize the source of power within a new era. And only then can we successfully profit from the momentum that these forces create. That is the logic flow of this book. Readers can benefit, right now, from applying this understanding to better anticipate the effects of transparency and to maximize returns for their companies or shareholders, and even to enhance the returns on their own human capital as well.
Alessandro Barchiesi
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691161815
- eISBN:
- 9781400852482
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691161815.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The study of Homeric imitations in Vergil has one of the longest traditions in Western culture, starting from the very moment the Aeneid was circulated. This is the first English translation of one ...
More
The study of Homeric imitations in Vergil has one of the longest traditions in Western culture, starting from the very moment the Aeneid was circulated. This is the first English translation of one of the most important and influential modern studies in this tradition. As a revised and expanded edition it advances innovative approaches even as it recuperates significant earlier interpretations, from Servius to G. N. Knauer. Approaching Homeric allusions in the Aeneid as “narrative effects” rather than glimpses of the creative mind of the author at work, the book demonstrates how these allusions generate hesitations and questions, as well as insights and guidance, and how they participate in the creation of narrative meaning. The book also examines how layers of competing interpretations in Homer are relevant to the Aeneid, revealing again the richness of the Homeric tradition as a component of meaning in the Aeneid. Finally, the book goes beyond previous studies of the Aeneid by distinguishing between two forms of Homeric intertextuality: reusing a text as an individual model or as a generic matrix. For this edition, a new chapter has been added, and in a new afterword the author puts the book in the context of changes in the study of Latin literature and intertextuality. The book has valuable insights for the wider study of imitation, allusion, intertextuality, epic, and literary theory.Less
The study of Homeric imitations in Vergil has one of the longest traditions in Western culture, starting from the very moment the Aeneid was circulated. This is the first English translation of one of the most important and influential modern studies in this tradition. As a revised and expanded edition it advances innovative approaches even as it recuperates significant earlier interpretations, from Servius to G. N. Knauer. Approaching Homeric allusions in the Aeneid as “narrative effects” rather than glimpses of the creative mind of the author at work, the book demonstrates how these allusions generate hesitations and questions, as well as insights and guidance, and how they participate in the creation of narrative meaning. The book also examines how layers of competing interpretations in Homer are relevant to the Aeneid, revealing again the richness of the Homeric tradition as a component of meaning in the Aeneid. Finally, the book goes beyond previous studies of the Aeneid by distinguishing between two forms of Homeric intertextuality: reusing a text as an individual model or as a generic matrix. For this edition, a new chapter has been added, and in a new afterword the author puts the book in the context of changes in the study of Latin literature and intertextuality. The book has valuable insights for the wider study of imitation, allusion, intertextuality, epic, and literary theory.
Gian Biagio Conte
S. J. Harrison (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199287017
- eISBN:
- 9780191713262
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199287017.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This volume presents a collection of pieces from a celebrated world-class scholar and interpreter of Latin poetry, focusing on the interpretation of Virgil's Aeneid. It forms the sequel to two widely ...
More
This volume presents a collection of pieces from a celebrated world-class scholar and interpreter of Latin poetry, focusing on the interpretation of Virgil's Aeneid. It forms the sequel to two widely influential earlier books on Virgil by the same author and translates and adds to a collection of papers published in Italian in 2002. Its central concern is the way in which Virgil reworks earlier poetry (especially that of Homer) at the most detailed level to produce very broad literary and emotional effects. Through detailed scholarly analysis, the book explores a central issue in Virgilian studies, that of how the Aeneid manages to create a new and effective mode of epic in a period when the genre appears to be debased or exhausted.Less
This volume presents a collection of pieces from a celebrated world-class scholar and interpreter of Latin poetry, focusing on the interpretation of Virgil's Aeneid. It forms the sequel to two widely influential earlier books on Virgil by the same author and translates and adds to a collection of papers published in Italian in 2002. Its central concern is the way in which Virgil reworks earlier poetry (especially that of Homer) at the most detailed level to produce very broad literary and emotional effects. Through detailed scholarly analysis, the book explores a central issue in Virgilian studies, that of how the Aeneid manages to create a new and effective mode of epic in a period when the genre appears to be debased or exhausted.
Stefan Tilg
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199576944
- eISBN:
- 9780191722486
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199576944.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Chapter two discusses selected aspects of Chariton's hometown, Aphrodisias, which might have been relevant to the invention of a new form of writing: the massive building programme in the city‐centre ...
More
Chapter two discusses selected aspects of Chariton's hometown, Aphrodisias, which might have been relevant to the invention of a new form of writing: the massive building programme in the city‐centre since Augustus, the local cult of Aphrodite, and various links to Miletus (which also had a famed cult of Aphrodite and was known as the focal point of Aristides’ Milesiaca, arguably a source of inspiration for Chariton's prose fiction). A detailed study of Chariton's date points to the Julio‐Claudian era. His use of Virgil's Aeneid supplies us with the terminus post quem of 19 BC, the year of Virgil's death; Persius’ reference to one ‘Callirhoe’ in his first satire (1. 134) with the terminus ante quem of AD 62, the year of Persius’ death. This time frame ties in with an identification of Chariton's employer, Athenagoras, in Aphrodisian epigraphy. An excursus on Chariton's potential impact on non‐novelistic authors suggests his significance as a paradigmatic author.Less
Chapter two discusses selected aspects of Chariton's hometown, Aphrodisias, which might have been relevant to the invention of a new form of writing: the massive building programme in the city‐centre since Augustus, the local cult of Aphrodite, and various links to Miletus (which also had a famed cult of Aphrodite and was known as the focal point of Aristides’ Milesiaca, arguably a source of inspiration for Chariton's prose fiction). A detailed study of Chariton's date points to the Julio‐Claudian era. His use of Virgil's Aeneid supplies us with the terminus post quem of 19 BC, the year of Virgil's death; Persius’ reference to one ‘Callirhoe’ in his first satire (1. 134) with the terminus ante quem of AD 62, the year of Persius’ death. This time frame ties in with an identification of Chariton's employer, Athenagoras, in Aphrodisian epigraphy. An excursus on Chariton's potential impact on non‐novelistic authors suggests his significance as a paradigmatic author.
Stefan Tilg
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199576944
- eISBN:
- 9780191722486
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199576944.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
In Chariton's poetics the motif of Rumour is closely linked with the categories of novelty and narrative. This exploration of Rumour (Φήμη) in her own right completes the investigation of Chariton's ...
More
In Chariton's poetics the motif of Rumour is closely linked with the categories of novelty and narrative. This exploration of Rumour (Φήμη) in her own right completes the investigation of Chariton's poetics and leads on to a recent and unexpected model author: although there are some Homeric reminiscences in Chariton's Rumour, fuller functional and textual parallels in Virgil's Aeneid lead to believe that Chariton derived his motif from the Roman epic poet.Less
In Chariton's poetics the motif of Rumour is closely linked with the categories of novelty and narrative. This exploration of Rumour (Φήμη) in her own right completes the investigation of Chariton's poetics and leads on to a recent and unexpected model author: although there are some Homeric reminiscences in Chariton's Rumour, fuller functional and textual parallels in Virgil's Aeneid lead to believe that Chariton derived his motif from the Roman epic poet.
Stefan Tilg
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199576944
- eISBN:
- 9780191722486
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199576944.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Chapter eight substantiates the claim that Chariton looked to Virgil, adds further evidence to this, and considers conseqences for our general assessment of Narratives about Callirhoe. More parallels ...
More
Chapter eight substantiates the claim that Chariton looked to Virgil, adds further evidence to this, and considers conseqences for our general assessment of Narratives about Callirhoe. More parallels in phrases and motifs suggest that Chariton conceived of his novel to some extent as a romantic answer to Virgil's tragic story of Dido and Aeneas. A discussion of the general question of the reception of Roman literature in the Greek world is followed by an account of the significance of Aeneas (and his mother Aphrodite) in the historical relations between Aphrodisias and Rome. Three different scenarios explore how Chariton would have gained access to the Aeneid. For an interpretation of Narratives about Callirhoe, the exclusively psychological and emotional reception of the political Roman model discourages political readings of Chariton.Less
Chapter eight substantiates the claim that Chariton looked to Virgil, adds further evidence to this, and considers conseqences for our general assessment of Narratives about Callirhoe. More parallels in phrases and motifs suggest that Chariton conceived of his novel to some extent as a romantic answer to Virgil's tragic story of Dido and Aeneas. A discussion of the general question of the reception of Roman literature in the Greek world is followed by an account of the significance of Aeneas (and his mother Aphrodite) in the historical relations between Aphrodisias and Rome. Three different scenarios explore how Chariton would have gained access to the Aeneid. For an interpretation of Narratives about Callirhoe, the exclusively psychological and emotional reception of the political Roman model discourages political readings of Chariton.
John Marincola
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199558681
- eISBN:
- 9780191720888
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199558681.003.0012
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
This chapter works outward from the final scene of Virgil's Aeneid in order to examine three interlocking themes. The first is the importance of the Social (or Marsic) War (91-88 BC) as an analogue ...
More
This chapter works outward from the final scene of Virgil's Aeneid in order to examine three interlocking themes. The first is the importance of the Social (or Marsic) War (91-88 BC) as an analogue for the battles waged for Italy in the second half of Virgil's Aeneid. Here historiographical texts (Sallust, Diodorus, Posidonius) are adduced in order to show the issues surrounding the Social War. The second theme is the dilemma between mercy and vengeance, and the difficulty for Roman authors in portraying civil war. It is argued that the ‘open’ endings of both Aeneid and Sallust's Catiline are not accidental, but rather one strategy for dealing with those difficulties. The third theme is the role that spoils play in late Republican discussions of their empire and treatment of their subjects, and the way in which this is related to the question of civil war.Less
This chapter works outward from the final scene of Virgil's Aeneid in order to examine three interlocking themes. The first is the importance of the Social (or Marsic) War (91-88 BC) as an analogue for the battles waged for Italy in the second half of Virgil's Aeneid. Here historiographical texts (Sallust, Diodorus, Posidonius) are adduced in order to show the issues surrounding the Social War. The second theme is the dilemma between mercy and vengeance, and the difficulty for Roman authors in portraying civil war. It is argued that the ‘open’ endings of both Aeneid and Sallust's Catiline are not accidental, but rather one strategy for dealing with those difficulties. The third theme is the role that spoils play in late Republican discussions of their empire and treatment of their subjects, and the way in which this is related to the question of civil war.
Micaela Janan
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199556922
- eISBN:
- 9780191721021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199556922.003.0006
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines how King Pentheus tries to address Thebes' social breakdown into Bacchanalia with an absurd harangue, exhorting his frenzied subjects to forsake the new god in favour of another ...
More
This chapter examines how King Pentheus tries to address Thebes' social breakdown into Bacchanalia with an absurd harangue, exhorting his frenzied subjects to forsake the new god in favour of another role model—the monstrous serpent Cadmus slew after it had killed his men nearly prevented the city's founding. But the sheer bizarrerie of Pentheus' speech (Met. 3.543–7) is essential to its significance. Making the snake that destroyed the first Thebans into a patriotic icon, Pentheus deploys a symbol that is both scandalous and oddly in conformity with the Roman use of myth. The point of the snake as patriotic symbol lies precisely in this tense duality. That is the alchemy of ideology: it converts what contradicts its claims into evidence appearing to support them. Ovid's Theban history of internecine strife, juridical cruelty, and religious terrorism ultimately mirrors Rome, illuminating Rome's patriotism as the darkest of conspiracies.Less
This chapter examines how King Pentheus tries to address Thebes' social breakdown into Bacchanalia with an absurd harangue, exhorting his frenzied subjects to forsake the new god in favour of another role model—the monstrous serpent Cadmus slew after it had killed his men nearly prevented the city's founding. But the sheer bizarrerie of Pentheus' speech (Met. 3.543–7) is essential to its significance. Making the snake that destroyed the first Thebans into a patriotic icon, Pentheus deploys a symbol that is both scandalous and oddly in conformity with the Roman use of myth. The point of the snake as patriotic symbol lies precisely in this tense duality. That is the alchemy of ideology: it converts what contradicts its claims into evidence appearing to support them. Ovid's Theban history of internecine strife, juridical cruelty, and religious terrorism ultimately mirrors Rome, illuminating Rome's patriotism as the darkest of conspiracies.
Micaela Janan
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199556922
- eISBN:
- 9780191721021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199556922.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Ovid's epic response to Vergil gives body to what the Aeneid already shadows forth: the intractable paradoxes undermining epic dreams of a harmonious, organically united polity. But the intertextual ...
More
Ovid's epic response to Vergil gives body to what the Aeneid already shadows forth: the intractable paradoxes undermining epic dreams of a harmonious, organically united polity. But the intertextual conversation among Latin epics did not stop with the Metamorphoses. This chapter examines briefly how Ovid crucially and fundamentally shaped his epic successors' civic visions, sketching the parameters of generic re‐vision from Lucan to Silius Italicus. The intrafamilial civil war regularly dramatized by Vergil's successors moulds their epic cities around political desperation and gendered conflict. Vergil shaped the beginnings of the urbs aeterna into a providential narrative whose logical telos was Augustan Rome, bequeathing to later epic intense engagement with the nature and limitations of the polity. But Ovid shared that engagement; what the post‐Augustan epicists read in Vergil they read in part through the lens Ovid had provided them. His Thebes particularizes just how the providential city comes to grief.Less
Ovid's epic response to Vergil gives body to what the Aeneid already shadows forth: the intractable paradoxes undermining epic dreams of a harmonious, organically united polity. But the intertextual conversation among Latin epics did not stop with the Metamorphoses. This chapter examines briefly how Ovid crucially and fundamentally shaped his epic successors' civic visions, sketching the parameters of generic re‐vision from Lucan to Silius Italicus. The intrafamilial civil war regularly dramatized by Vergil's successors moulds their epic cities around political desperation and gendered conflict. Vergil shaped the beginnings of the urbs aeterna into a providential narrative whose logical telos was Augustan Rome, bequeathing to later epic intense engagement with the nature and limitations of the polity. But Ovid shared that engagement; what the post‐Augustan epicists read in Vergil they read in part through the lens Ovid had provided them. His Thebes particularizes just how the providential city comes to grief.
Costas Panayotakis
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199232536
- eISBN:
- 9780191716003
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199232536.003.0009
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter looks at the sources that assert that three sequences from the Aeneid were performed in pantomime—those dealing with Dido, Turnus, and the katabasis to the Underworld (tales dealing with ...
More
This chapter looks at the sources that assert that three sequences from the Aeneid were performed in pantomime—those dealing with Dido, Turnus, and the katabasis to the Underworld (tales dealing with love, death, violence, and vivid spectacle): Macrobius, for example, says that the love story of Dido and Aeneas is kept alive by the incessant gestures and songs of the actors; whilst Augustine suggests that the majority of his readers would be familiar with the episode between Aeneas and Anchises in the Underworld through performances of it in the theatre. Panayotakis argues that Virgil's poetry was important to the development of pantomime and of Latin literary aesthetics. This chapter engages with the issue of pantomime libretti.Less
This chapter looks at the sources that assert that three sequences from the Aeneid were performed in pantomime—those dealing with Dido, Turnus, and the katabasis to the Underworld (tales dealing with love, death, violence, and vivid spectacle): Macrobius, for example, says that the love story of Dido and Aeneas is kept alive by the incessant gestures and songs of the actors; whilst Augustine suggests that the majority of his readers would be familiar with the episode between Aeneas and Anchises in the Underworld through performances of it in the theatre. Panayotakis argues that Virgil's poetry was important to the development of pantomime and of Latin literary aesthetics. This chapter engages with the issue of pantomime libretti.
Craig Kallendorf
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199212361
- eISBN:
- 9780191707285
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212361.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book tells the story of how a classic like the Aeneid can say different things to different people. As a school text it was generally taught to support the values and ideals of a succession of ...
More
This book tells the story of how a classic like the Aeneid can say different things to different people. As a school text it was generally taught to support the values and ideals of a succession of postclassical societies. But between 1500 and 1800, a number of unusually sensitive readers responded to cues in the text that call into question what the poem appears to be supporting. This book focuses on the literary works written by these readers to show how they used the Aeneid as a model for poems that probed and challenged the dominant values of their society, just as Virgil had done centuries before. Some of these poems are not as well known today as they should be, but others, like Milton's Paradise Lost and Shakespeare's The Tempest, are; in the latter case, the poems can be understood in new ways once their relationship to the ‘other Virgil’ is made clear.Less
This book tells the story of how a classic like the Aeneid can say different things to different people. As a school text it was generally taught to support the values and ideals of a succession of postclassical societies. But between 1500 and 1800, a number of unusually sensitive readers responded to cues in the text that call into question what the poem appears to be supporting. This book focuses on the literary works written by these readers to show how they used the Aeneid as a model for poems that probed and challenged the dominant values of their society, just as Virgil had done centuries before. Some of these poems are not as well known today as they should be, but others, like Milton's Paradise Lost and Shakespeare's The Tempest, are; in the latter case, the poems can be understood in new ways once their relationship to the ‘other Virgil’ is made clear.
Philip Hardie
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197263235
- eISBN:
- 9780191734328
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197263235.003.0014
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The twentieth century was marked by an accelerating intensity of critical attention to Virgil, triggered initially by a revaluation of the merits of Latin literature in comparison to its Greek ...
More
The twentieth century was marked by an accelerating intensity of critical attention to Virgil, triggered initially by a revaluation of the merits of Latin literature in comparison to its Greek models. This chapter takes a short passage of the Aeneid, what might appear little more than a vignette, and offers a reading both intensive in its detailed teasing out of the text, and extensive in the networks of allusion and meaning in which this passage is caught. It draws on some of the reader-response approaches which developed in the later part of that century. Michael Putnam's interpretation lays emphasis on elements that are suppressed in this description of the Ganymede story: Jupiter's erotic delight in his human prey, and the triumphant elevation of the boy to immortality on Olympus.Less
The twentieth century was marked by an accelerating intensity of critical attention to Virgil, triggered initially by a revaluation of the merits of Latin literature in comparison to its Greek models. This chapter takes a short passage of the Aeneid, what might appear little more than a vignette, and offers a reading both intensive in its detailed teasing out of the text, and extensive in the networks of allusion and meaning in which this passage is caught. It draws on some of the reader-response approaches which developed in the later part of that century. Michael Putnam's interpretation lays emphasis on elements that are suppressed in this description of the Ganymede story: Jupiter's erotic delight in his human prey, and the triumphant elevation of the boy to immortality on Olympus.
Craig Kallendorf
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199212361
- eISBN:
- 9780191707285
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212361.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter focuses on Francesco Filelfo, a humanist scholar who was well known in the 15th century and whose mastery of Latin scholarship should have positioned him at the centre of power and ...
More
This chapter focuses on Francesco Filelfo, a humanist scholar who was well known in the 15th century and whose mastery of Latin scholarship should have positioned him at the centre of power and privilege. He chose to advertise his skill by imitating the Aeneid, but the Aeneid he saw was not the straightforward one that was being presented by the first generations of humanist schoolmasters.Less
This chapter focuses on Francesco Filelfo, a humanist scholar who was well known in the 15th century and whose mastery of Latin scholarship should have positioned him at the centre of power and privilege. He chose to advertise his skill by imitating the Aeneid, but the Aeneid he saw was not the straightforward one that was being presented by the first generations of humanist schoolmasters.
Craig Kallendorf
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199212361
- eISBN:
- 9780191707285
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212361.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter develops the connection between the Aeneid and the imperial projects of the 15th and 16th centuries. It was easy for the colonizers to cast themselves in the role of Aeneas and the ...
More
This chapter develops the connection between the Aeneid and the imperial projects of the 15th and 16th centuries. It was easy for the colonizers to cast themselves in the role of Aeneas and the conquering Trojans, and this approach accorded well with the demands of the schools, which tended then, as now, to eschew moral complexity. But then as now, again, more mature readers in different environments were able to see that Virgil presented both what is lost as well as what is gained in conquest, so that as early as Bartolomé de Las Casas, some Europeans were able, like Virgil, to see imperialism from the other side. Some of them, like Alonso de Ercilla and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, are still known to specialists and to educated people in their own countries; and others, like William Shakespeare, are known wherever Western culture has penetrated. All of them, however, turned the model text of the colonizers against them, focusing on the ‘other voices’ in the Aeneid in a series of protests that became more insistent as the Virgilian imitations moved from epic to drama to lyric. This line of argument suggests, in turn, that Virgil's place in the ideology of the Ancien Régime is also more complicated than traditional historiography suggests.Less
This chapter develops the connection between the Aeneid and the imperial projects of the 15th and 16th centuries. It was easy for the colonizers to cast themselves in the role of Aeneas and the conquering Trojans, and this approach accorded well with the demands of the schools, which tended then, as now, to eschew moral complexity. But then as now, again, more mature readers in different environments were able to see that Virgil presented both what is lost as well as what is gained in conquest, so that as early as Bartolomé de Las Casas, some Europeans were able, like Virgil, to see imperialism from the other side. Some of them, like Alonso de Ercilla and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, are still known to specialists and to educated people in their own countries; and others, like William Shakespeare, are known wherever Western culture has penetrated. All of them, however, turned the model text of the colonizers against them, focusing on the ‘other voices’ in the Aeneid in a series of protests that became more insistent as the Virgilian imitations moved from epic to drama to lyric. This line of argument suggests, in turn, that Virgil's place in the ideology of the Ancien Régime is also more complicated than traditional historiography suggests.
Craig Kallendorf
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199212361
- eISBN:
- 9780191707285
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212361.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter considers three key assaults on the Ancien Régime: those of Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century; the American colonies at the end of the 18th; and the French citizenry, from the assault ...
More
This chapter considers three key assaults on the Ancien Régime: those of Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century; the American colonies at the end of the 18th; and the French citizenry, from the assault on the Bastille to the rise of Napoleon. In each case, an imitation of the Aeneid develops into an effort to come to terms with rapid political and social change. In the case of Paradise Lost, John Milton produced a poem that reveals all the complexities of the Restoration and his efforts to find a place within it, while in the case of the Columbiad, the production and revision of the poem show how Joel Barlow succeeded in creating an epic that articulates the values of a new revolutionary society. The third poem, the little-known Virgile en France of Victor Alexandre Chrétien Le Plat du Temple, makes the Aeneid, traditionally seen as a pro-imperial poem, into an allegory of the establishment of the French republic.Less
This chapter considers three key assaults on the Ancien Régime: those of Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century; the American colonies at the end of the 18th; and the French citizenry, from the assault on the Bastille to the rise of Napoleon. In each case, an imitation of the Aeneid develops into an effort to come to terms with rapid political and social change. In the case of Paradise Lost, John Milton produced a poem that reveals all the complexities of the Restoration and his efforts to find a place within it, while in the case of the Columbiad, the production and revision of the poem show how Joel Barlow succeeded in creating an epic that articulates the values of a new revolutionary society. The third poem, the little-known Virgile en France of Victor Alexandre Chrétien Le Plat du Temple, makes the Aeneid, traditionally seen as a pro-imperial poem, into an allegory of the establishment of the French republic.
Craig Kallendorf
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199212361
- eISBN:
- 9780191707285
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212361.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This concluding chapter presents some final thoughts on the reading and translation of the Aeneid. It argues that we need to become more sophisticated in the way we analyse the relationship between ...
More
This concluding chapter presents some final thoughts on the reading and translation of the Aeneid. It argues that we need to become more sophisticated in the way we analyse the relationship between two works of literature. It suggests that considerably more work needs to be done on the relationship between what is done in the schools and what is produced as ‘high culture’ by the graduates of those schools. The model provided by the Aeneid and its early modern progeny suggests that adopting a work of literature as a school text can become a proverbial two-edged sword. On the one hand, the fact that every educated person knew the Aeneid for hundreds of years provided opportunities that were fully exploited by writers like Le Plat, who parodied Virgil with the confidence that their work would be understood and appreciated in ways that are simply not possible today. On the other hand, the Aeneid was such a ubiquitous part of early modern culture that, as late as the 1970s, readers of Shakespeare's The Tempest simply failed to see it as the central subtext that it is now widely recognized to be.Less
This concluding chapter presents some final thoughts on the reading and translation of the Aeneid. It argues that we need to become more sophisticated in the way we analyse the relationship between two works of literature. It suggests that considerably more work needs to be done on the relationship between what is done in the schools and what is produced as ‘high culture’ by the graduates of those schools. The model provided by the Aeneid and its early modern progeny suggests that adopting a work of literature as a school text can become a proverbial two-edged sword. On the one hand, the fact that every educated person knew the Aeneid for hundreds of years provided opportunities that were fully exploited by writers like Le Plat, who parodied Virgil with the confidence that their work would be understood and appreciated in ways that are simply not possible today. On the other hand, the Aeneid was such a ubiquitous part of early modern culture that, as late as the 1970s, readers of Shakespeare's The Tempest simply failed to see it as the central subtext that it is now widely recognized to be.
Micaela Janan
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199556922
- eISBN:
- 9780191721021
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199556922.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Ovid's extraordinary story of Thebes' founding and bloody unravelling spans Books 2 and 3 of his epic poem, the Metamorphoses. His bizarre refractions of the well‐ordered community mirror Ovid's own ...
More
Ovid's extraordinary story of Thebes' founding and bloody unravelling spans Books 2 and 3 of his epic poem, the Metamorphoses. His bizarre refractions of the well‐ordered community mirror Ovid's own Rome and the mythohistory of its origins, most particularly as framed in Vergil's Aeneid. The Aeneid has regularly been read as, demonstrating how and why Rome will stride forward into history and an ‘empire without end’. This book uses the psychoanalytic theory of Freud and Lacan to argue that The Metamorphoses' strangely fantastical surface reflects what is already inherently perverse in that master‐narrative and discloses its internal contradictions. Ovid's Thebes features supernatural transformations, perverse fascinations, and violent end: Actaeon turned deer and the victim of his own hounds, Narcissus fatally captivated by his own image, Pentheus ripped apart by his mother and aunt. Ovid's reflections on how and why Thebes comes together—and how it comes unstuck—sceptically interrogate not only the existing (Roman) political order, claimed asiasting truth, but also the very possibility of organizing any polity into a harmonious, organically unified, lasting institution. Ovid thus poses doubts and questions crucial to the whole epic genre and its stress on collective identity as a function of a particular city‐state. His Metamorphoses probes the logical principles of the ordered human community—its cohesion, identity, and governance—revealing a hidden bond between the epic Doomed City (Troy, Thebes, Carthage) and the City of Manifest Destiny (Rome). In Ovid's ‘tale of two cities’ each logically defines and suppors the other. By asking, ‘What does it mean to be a polity? a citizen of a polity?’, Ovid poses questions centred upon the concept of identity. His Theban cycle thus asks even more radically, ‘What is identity? What shapes it? What changes it?’ To explicate Ovid's critique of epic nationalism and identity, a series of close readings of episodes from Books 3 and 4 draws upon psychoanalysis as a body of thought devoted to unfolding just how an unconscious constantly subverts notions of individual and collective selfhood. Psychoanalysis offers the conceptual basis for seeing the questions Ovid's Thebes inspires as facets of one problematic, revealing the singularity of Ovid's foundation‐tale as more rich and complex than previously appreciated.Less
Ovid's extraordinary story of Thebes' founding and bloody unravelling spans Books 2 and 3 of his epic poem, the Metamorphoses. His bizarre refractions of the well‐ordered community mirror Ovid's own Rome and the mythohistory of its origins, most particularly as framed in Vergil's Aeneid. The Aeneid has regularly been read as, demonstrating how and why Rome will stride forward into history and an ‘empire without end’. This book uses the psychoanalytic theory of Freud and Lacan to argue that The Metamorphoses' strangely fantastical surface reflects what is already inherently perverse in that master‐narrative and discloses its internal contradictions. Ovid's Thebes features supernatural transformations, perverse fascinations, and violent end: Actaeon turned deer and the victim of his own hounds, Narcissus fatally captivated by his own image, Pentheus ripped apart by his mother and aunt. Ovid's reflections on how and why Thebes comes together—and how it comes unstuck—sceptically interrogate not only the existing (Roman) political order, claimed asiasting truth, but also the very possibility of organizing any polity into a harmonious, organically unified, lasting institution. Ovid thus poses doubts and questions crucial to the whole epic genre and its stress on collective identity as a function of a particular city‐state. His Metamorphoses probes the logical principles of the ordered human community—its cohesion, identity, and governance—revealing a hidden bond between the epic Doomed City (Troy, Thebes, Carthage) and the City of Manifest Destiny (Rome). In Ovid's ‘tale of two cities’ each logically defines and suppors the other. By asking, ‘What does it mean to be a polity? a citizen of a polity?’, Ovid poses questions centred upon the concept of identity. His Theban cycle thus asks even more radically, ‘What is identity? What shapes it? What changes it?’ To explicate Ovid's critique of epic nationalism and identity, a series of close readings of episodes from Books 3 and 4 draws upon psychoanalysis as a body of thought devoted to unfolding just how an unconscious constantly subverts notions of individual and collective selfhood. Psychoanalysis offers the conceptual basis for seeing the questions Ovid's Thebes inspires as facets of one problematic, revealing the singularity of Ovid's foundation‐tale as more rich and complex than previously appreciated.
Alessandro Barchiesi
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691161815
- eISBN:
- 9781400852482
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691161815.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discerns to what extent the presence of a model cooperates in making legible the narrative implicating it, how it serves to guide the reader, and aids in making sense of the text. It ...
More
This chapter discerns to what extent the presence of a model cooperates in making legible the narrative implicating it, how it serves to guide the reader, and aids in making sense of the text. It shows to what degree Homer comes into play for reading the plot. Here, the chapter is concerned with not just occasional contacts between single speech acts but also with entire implicit scripts and plot lines that the model projects upon the new text and its reading. Hence, this chapter engages a sufficiently long stretch of text, and by focusing on a larger narrative arc, it seeks to discover how the complex process unfolds and at the same time measure the presence of the Homeric model as a trace of sense and aid to narration. The text under discussion is the tenth book of the Aeneid.Less
This chapter discerns to what extent the presence of a model cooperates in making legible the narrative implicating it, how it serves to guide the reader, and aids in making sense of the text. It shows to what degree Homer comes into play for reading the plot. Here, the chapter is concerned with not just occasional contacts between single speech acts but also with entire implicit scripts and plot lines that the model projects upon the new text and its reading. Hence, this chapter engages a sufficiently long stretch of text, and by focusing on a larger narrative arc, it seeks to discover how the complex process unfolds and at the same time measure the presence of the Homeric model as a trace of sense and aid to narration. The text under discussion is the tenth book of the Aeneid.
