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This article studies three Virgilian descriptions that are creatively re-composed or reinvented by the vernacular poet of the Roman d'Eneas: a) a personification allegory of Fama from Aeneid 4 as augmented in Old French; b) from Book 9 in particular, a dramatic scenario involving the siege scenes in Latium, where the detail is arresting; and finally, c) from the dénouement of the epic, a dynamic battle scene between Aeneas and his nemesis, Latin Turnus. They are in a duel to the death.

Inside \"Paradise Lost\"opens up new readings and ways of reading Milton's epic poem by mapping out the intricacies of its narrative and symbolic designs and by revealing and exploring the deeply allusive texture of its verse. David Quint's comprehensive study demonstrates how systematic patterns of allusion and keywords give structure and coherence both to individual books ofParadise Lostand to the overarching relationship among its books and episodes. Looking at poems within the poem, Quint provides new interpretations as he takes readers through the major subjects ofParadise Lost-its relationship to epic tradition and the Bible, its cosmology and politics, and its dramas of human choice. Quint shows how Milton radically revises the epic tradition and the Genesis story itself by arguing that it is better to create than destroy, by telling the reader to make love, not war, and by appearing to ratify Adam's decision to fall and die with his wife. The Milton of thisParadise Lostis a Christian humanist who believes in the power and freedom of human moral agency. As this indispensable guide and reference takes us inside the poetry of Milton's masterpiece,Paradise Lostreveals itself in new formal configurations and unsuspected levels of meaning and design.

This book offers a novel interpretation of politics and identity in Ovid's epic poem of transformations, theMetamorphoses. Reexamining the emphatically fictional character of the poem,Playing Godsargues that Ovid uses the problem of fiction in the text to redefine the power of poetry in Augustan Rome. The book also provides the fullest account yet of how the poem relates to the range of cultural phenomena that defined and projected Augustan authority, including spectacle, theater, and the visual arts. Andrew Feldherr argues that a key to the political as well as literary power of theMetamorphosesis the way it manipulates its readers' awareness that its stories cannot possibly be true. By continually juxtaposing the imaginary and the real, Ovid shows how a poem made up of fictions can and cannot acquire the authority and presence of other discursive forms. One important way that the poem does this is through narratives that create a \"double vision\" by casting characters as both mythical figures and enduring presences in the physical landscapes of its readers. This narrative device creates the kind of tensions between identification and distance that Augustan Romans would have felt when experiencing imperial spectacle and other contemporary cultural forms. Full of original interpretations,Playing Godsconstructs a model for political readings of fiction that will be useful not only to classicists but to literary theorists and cultural historians in other fields.

Stories about brothers were central to Romans' public and poetic myth making, to their experience of family life, and to their ideas about intimacy among men. Through the analysis of literary and legal representations of brothers, Cynthia Bannon attempts to re-create the context and contradictions that shaped Roman ideas about brothers. She draws together expressions of brotherly love and rivalry around an idealized notion of fraternity: fraternalpietas--the traditional Roman virtue that combined affection and duty in kinship. Romans believed that the relationship between brothers was especially close since their natural kinship made them nearly alter egos. Because of this special status, the fraternal relationship became a model for Romans of relationships between friends, lovers, and soldiers. The fraternal relationship first took shape at home, where inheritance laws and practices fostered cooperation among brothers in managing family property and caring for relatives. Appeals to fraternalpietasin political rhetoric drew a large audience in the forum, because brothers' devotion symbolized themos maiorum, the traditional morality that grounded Roman politics and celebrated brothers fighting together on the battlefield. Fraternalpietasand fratricide became powerful metaphors for Romans as they grappled with the experience of recurrent civil war in the late Republic and with the changes brought by empire. Mythological figures like Romulus and Remus epitomized the fraternal symbolism that pervaded Roman society and culture. InThe Brothers of Romulus, Bannon combines literary criticism with historical legal analysis for a better understanding of Roman conceptions of brotherhood.

This chapter contains sections titled: Law‐Making and Law‐Preserving Violence Mythical Violence Divine Violence Vergil and the Roman Exemplum Further Reading

This chapter contains sections titled: Career and Genres Virgil by Name Virgil as Intertext Subversion or Collaboration? Ovid's ‘Aeneid’ (Met. 13.623–14.608) Virgil Outside Ovid's ‘Aeneid’ Further Reading

This chapter contains sections titled: Acknowledgment Further Reading

This article is concerned with four passages which represent acts committed by Aeneas to avenge Pallas. In them Aeneas kills suppliants who have begged for their lives and deprives a dead enemy of burial, boasting that his body will be eaten by animals. No other character in the Aeneid is described as doing these things. In addition, in all these passages Aeneas either ignores or scorns the parent-child relationship. Representations and discussions of these actions by Roman and Greek authors will be used to show that Vergil must have intended that they be regarded as extremely repulsive.