Translating & Interpreting, Literary Criticism - General & Miscellaneous, Ancient Rome Biography, Latin Language Reference, Poetic Theory, Ancient Roman Poetry - Literary Criticism, The Roman Empire - History

Virgil and the Augustan Reception

Name: Virgil and the Augustan Reception
Author: Richard F. Thomas
ISBN: 9780521028950

by Richard F. Thomas

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Overview

"This book is an examination of the ideological reception of Virgil at specific moments in the last two millennia. Following Tennyson's evaluation of Virgil - "Thou majestic in thy sadness / at the doubtful doom of human kind" - Richard Thomas first scrutinizes the Virgil tradition for readings that refute contemporary dismissals of the putative post-Vietnam Angst of the so-called "Harvard School," then detects the suppression of such readings in the "Augustan" reception, effected through the lens of Augustus and the European successors of Augustus who constructed Rome's first emperor - and Virgil - for their own political purposes. He looks at Augustus in the poetry of Virgil, detects in the poets and grammarians of antiquity alternately a collaborative oppositional reading and an attempt to suppress such reading, studies creative translation (particularly Dryden's), which reasserts the "Augustan" Virgil, and examines naive translation which can be truer to the spirit of Virgil. Scrutiny of "textual cleansing," philology's rewriting or excision of troubling readings, leads to readings by both supporters and opponents of fascism and National Socialism to support or subvert the latter-day Augustus. The book ends with a diachronic examination of the ways successive ages have tried to make the Aeneid conform to their upbeat expectations of this poet."--BOOK JACKET.

Synopsis

This book examines the ideological reception of Virgil at specific moments in the past two millennia. It focuses on the emperor Augustus in the poetry of Virgil, detects in the poets and grammarians of antiquity pro- and anti-Augustan readings, studies Dryden's 1697 Royalist translation, and also naive American translation. It scrutinizes nineteenth-century philology's rewriting or excision of troubling readings, and covers readings by both supporters and opponents of fascism and National Socialism. Finally it examines how successive ages have made the Aeneid conform to their upbeat expectations of this poet.