Virgil's Aeneid: Cosmos and ImperiumThis book explores Virgil's poetic and mythical transformation of Roman imperialist ideology. The Romans saw an analogy between the ordered workings of the natural universe and the proper functioning of their own expanding empire; between orbis and urbs. In combining this cosmic imperialism with the military and panegyrical themes proper to epic, Virgil draws on a number of traditions: the notion that the ideal poet is a cosmologer; the use of allegory to extract natural-philosophical truths from mythology and poetry (especially Homer); the poetic use of hyperbole and the 'universal expression'. Virgil's imagination is dominated by the cosmological poem of Lucretius; the "Aeneid", like the "De rerum natura", is a poem about the universe and how man should live in it, but Virgil's constant inversion of Lucretian values makes of him an anti-Lucretius. Recent criticism has tended to stress the pessimistic and private sides of the "Aeneid"; but any easy conclusion that the poet was at heart anti-Augustan is precluded by the depth and detail with which he develops the imperialist themes discussed in this book. |
Contents
POETRY AND COSMOLOGY IN ANTIQUITY | 5 |
Epic and cosmology | 22 |
COSMOLOGY AND HISTORY IN VIRGIL | 33 |
Copyright | |
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Actium Aeneas Aeneid Aeolus allegorical allusion Anchises ancient aoidos Apollo Atlas atque Augustan Augustus battle Battle of Actium book eight Buchheit Cacus caeli caelum chapter context cosmic setting cosmological cosmos Demodocus Dido discussion divine division earth echoes ecphrasis elements Empedoclean Empedocles Ennius epic Epicurean Epicurus Etna example Fama fulmen function Gauls Georgics Giants Gigantomachy gods Greek heaven Hellenistic Hercules hero Hesiodic Homeric Homeric model Homeric Shield human hyperbole Iliad imagery Iopas Jupiter literary Lucr Lucretian Lucretius myth mythical mythological natural-philosophical Odyssey panegyric parallels passage Pergamene Pergamum philosophical poem poet poetic poetry present proem quae reference Rerum Natura Roman Rome scenes Shield of Achilles Shield of Aeneas simile song storm suggested tellus terras themes thunderbolt traditional Trojans Turnus Typhoeus Underworld universal expression Venus victory Virgil Virgilian winds world-divisions Zeus καὶ