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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 59
... give to individual spots of the landscape in order to turn them into attractions . The buried Homeric city can hardly support vegetation that is not sterile , much less be the legitimating root and origin of the political dreams of ...
... gives ” her sails to the winds she has summoned , and we next see her being passively carried away from the battle by wave and wind . With Cleopatra the opposition between East and West is explicitly characterized in terms of gender ...
... give Aeneas's 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 ...
... gives its shape not only to the political unity of the empire but also to a unified narrative that imperial conquest has conferred upon Roman history . The shield depicts Augustus's victory at Actium as the triumph of history itself ...
... gives reins to their frenzied wrath ; so a sailor , vanquished by the violent northwest gale , forsakes his skill and gives up his rudder to the winds , and is swept along , a listless burden to the ship . The confused camp trembles ...
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 |
Other editions - View all
Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton David Quint,Professor David Quint No preview available - 1993 |