Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to MiltonAlexander the Great, according to Plutarch, carried on his campaigns a copy of the Iliad, kept alongside a dagger; on a more pronounced ideological level, ancient Romans looked to the Aeneid as an argument for imperialism. In this major reinterpretation of epic poetry beginning with Virgil, David Quint explores the political context and meanings of key works in Western literature. He divides the history of the genre into two political traditions: the Virgilian epics of conquest and empire that take the victors' side (the Aeneid itself, Camoes's Lusíadas, Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata) and the countervailing epic of the defeated and of republican liberty (Lucan's Pharsalia, Ercilla's Araucana, and d'Aubigné's Les tragiques). These traditions produce opposing ideas of historical narrative: a linear, teleological narrative that belongs to the imperial conquerors, and an episodic and open-ended narrative identified with "romance," the story told of and by the defeated. |
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... future epic poets would emulate the Aeneid itself along with the Homeric epics ; future imperial dynasts would turn for epic inspiration less to Achilles than to Aeneas , a hero deliberately created for political reflection . Epics of ...
... future to the story that their victors may think they have ended once and for all . Nonetheless , this assimilation of Lucan's tradition to romance may already seem to be a capitulation to the terms dictated by the victors and their ...
... future suicide verbally recall the suicide of Dido ( 4.644 ) , and the resemblance between the two African queens is an important element in the poem's set of topical allusions . When , for example , at the end of Book 1 , Dido embraces ...
... future Romans easy sailing up his stream ( 86–89 ) . But Virgil's Rome was well acquainted with the periodic disasters of the Tiber's floods . 17 Epic and Romance The ideological dichotomies drawn between the winners and losers at ...
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Contents
21 | |
Repetition and Ideology in the Aeneid | 50 |
THREE | 99 |
Ercilla and dAubigné | 131 |
FIVE | 213 |
Miltons Politics and Paradise Regained | 325 |
NINE | 343 |
NOTES TO THE CHAPTERS | 369 |
INDEX | 427 |
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Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton David Quint,Professor David Quint No preview available - 1993 |