Virgil's Gaze

Nation and Poetry in the Aeneid
Erscheinungsjahr 2007
ISBN: 978-0-691-12740-8
Verlag: Princeton University Press

Buch, Englisch, 240 Seiten, HC gerader Rücken mit Schutzumschlag, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 545 g

Virgil's Aeneid invites its reader to identify with the Roman nation whose origins and destiny it celebrates. But, as J. D. Reed argues in Virgil's Gaze, the great Roman epic satisfies this identification only indirectly--if at all. In retelling the story of Aeneas' foundational journey from Troy to Italy, Virgil defines Roman national identity only provisionally, through oppositions to other ethnic identities--especially Trojan, Carthaginian, Italian, and Greek--oppositions that shift with the shifting perspective of the narrative. Roman identity emerges as multivalent and constantly changing rather than unitary and stable. The Roman self that the poem gives us is capacious--adaptable to a universal nationality, potentially an imperial force--but empty at its heart. However, the incongruities that produce this emptiness are also what make the Aeneid endlessly readable, since they forestall a single perspective and a single notion of the Roman. Focusing on questions of narratology, intertextuality, and ideology, Virgil's Gaze offers new readings of such major episodes as the fall of Troy, the pageant of heroes in the underworld, the death of Turnus, and the disconcertingly sensual descriptions of the slain Euryalus, Pallas, and Camilla. While advancing a highly original argument, Reed's wide-ranging study also serves as an ideal introduction to the poetics and principal themes of the Aeneid.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Reed, J. D.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Klassische Literaturwissenschaft Klassische Lateinische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

PREFACE vii Introduction 1 CHAPTER ONE: Euryalus 16 CHAPTER TWO: Turnus 44 CHAPTER THREE: Dido 73 CHAPTER FOUR: Andromache 101 CHAPTER FIVE: Ancient Cities 129 CHAPTER SIX: Marcellus 148 CHAPTER SEVEN: Aeneas 173 BIBLIOGRAPHY 203 INDEX OF TEXTS CITED 211 GENERAL INDEX 223