Bibliography
Adler, Eve. 2003. Vergil’s Empire: Political Thought in the Aeneid. Rowman & Littlefield.
Ahl, Frederik. 2007. Virgil Aeneid. A New Translation. Oxford University Press.
Barchiesi, A. 2001. Speaking Volumes. Narrative and Intertext in Ovid and Other Latin Poets, ed. & transl. by Matt Fox & Simone Marchesi. London: Duckworth.
Biow, D. 1994. “Epic Performance on Trial: Virgil’s Aeneid and the Power of Eros in Song.” Arethusa 27: 223-46.
Brown, R.D. 1990. “The Structural Function of the Song of Iopas.” HSPh 93: 315-34.
Depew, M. 1993. “Mimesis and Aetiology in Callimachus’ Hymns.” HG 1: 57-77.
Deremetz, A. 1995. Le Miroir des Muses. Poétiques de la réflexivité à Rome. Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.
Deremetz, A. 2001. “Énée Aède. Tradition Auctoriale et (re)fondation d’un genre.” In Entretiens sur l’Antiquité Classique, tome XLVII: L’Histoire Littéraire immanente dans la poésie latine. Vandoeuvres – Genève: Fondation Hardt.
Fernandelli, M. 1999. “Sic pater Aeneas … fata renarrabat divom: esperienza del racconto e esperienza nel racconto in Eneide II e III.” MD 42: 95-112.
Fowler, Don. 1989. “First Thoughts on Closure: Problems and Prospects.” MD 22: 75-122.
Fowler, Don. 1997. “Second Thoughts on Closure.” In Classical Closure. Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature, edd. D.H. Roberts, F.M. Dunn & D. Fowler, 3-22. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Gasti, Helen. 2006. “Three Notes on Virgil, Aeneid 2.” PCPS 52: 128-33.
Geymonat, Mario. 1993. “Callimachus at the End of Aeneas’ Narration.” HSPh 95: 323-31.
Glei, Reinhold F. 1998. “Der interepische poetologische Diskurs: Zum Verhältnis von Metamorphosen und Aeneis.” In Neue Methoden der Epenforschung, ed. H.L.C. Tristram, 85-104. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.
Harrison, E.L. 1980. “The Structure of the Aeneid: Observations on the Links Between the Books.” ANRW 31.1: 359-93.
Harrison, S. 2002. “Ovid and Genre: Evolutions of an Elegist.” In The Cambridge Companion to Ovid, ed. Ph. Hardie, 79-94. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Harrison, S. 2007. Generic Enrichment in Vergil and Horace. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harrison, S. 2007a. “The Primal Voyage and the Ocean of Epos: Two Aspects of Metapoetic Imagery in Catullus, Virgil and Horace.” Dictynna 4:1-17.
Hershkowitz, Debra. 1991. “The Aeneid in Aeneid 3.” Vergilius 37: 69-76.
Heyworth, S.J. 1993. “Dividing Poems.” In Formative Stages of Classical Traditions: Latin Texts from Antiquity to the Renaissance, edd. O. Pecere & M.D. Reeve, 117-48. Spoleto.
Hexter, Ralph. 1999. “Imitating Troy. A reading of Aeneid 3”. In Reading Vergil’s Aeneid: An Interpretive Guide, ed. Christine G. Perkell, 64-79. Univ. of Oklahoma Press.
Hinds, Stephen. 1998. Allusion and Intertext. Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry. Cambridge.
Horsfall, N. 2006. Virgil, Aeneid. 3. A Commentary, Leiden-Boston: Brill (Mn. Suppl. 273).
Kyriakidis, S. 1998. Narrative Structure and Poetics in the Aeneid. The Frame of Book 6. Bari.
Laird, A. 1999. Powers of Expressions, Expressions of Power: Speech Presentation and Latin Literature. Oxford.
Lloyd, R.B. 1957a. “Aeneid III: A New Approach.” AJPh 78: 133-151.
Lloyd, R.B. 1957b. “Aeneid III and the Aeneas Legend.” AJPh 78: 382-400.
Mandelbaum, Allen. 1971. The Aeneid of Virgil. A verse translation. Berkeley, Los Angeles & London: Univ. of California Press.
Mitchell-Boyask, Robin N. 1996. “Sine fine: Vergil’s Masterplot.” AJPh 117: 289-307.
Nagle, Betty Rose. 1983. “Open–ended Closure in Aeneid 2.” CW 76: 257-63.
Papanghelis, Theodore D. 1999. “Relegens errata litora: Virgil’s Reflexive ‘Odyssey’.” In Euphrosyne. Studies in Ancient Epic and its Legacy in Honor of Dimitris N. Maronitis, edd. J. N. Kazazis & A. Rengakos, 275-90. Stuttgart: F. Steiner Verlag.
Perkell, Christine G. 1999. “Aeneid 1: An Epic Program.” In Reading Vergil’s Aeneid: An Interpretive Guide, ed. Christine G. Perkell, 29-49. University of Oklahoma Press.
Pincus, M. 2004. “Propertius’s Gallus and the Erotics of Influence.” Arethusa 37: 165-196.
Putnam, M.C.J. 1995. Virgil’s Aeneid: Interpretation and Influence. Chapel Hill.
Smith, Barbara Herrnstein. 1968. Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End. Chicago.
Spence, Sarah. 1999. “Varium et mutabile. Voices of Authority in Aeneid 4.” In Reading Vergil’s Aeneid: An Interpretive Guide, ed. Christine G. Perkell, 80-95. University of Oklahoma Press.
Thomas, R.F. 1999. Reading Virgil and his Texts. Studies in Intertextuality. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Volk, K. 2002. The Poetics of Latin Didactic. Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, Manilius. Oxford.
Top of page
Notes
I would like to thank the Editors of Dictynna and my two anonymous readers for their useful criticisms and suggestions.
Glei 1998 considers structure (i.e number and division of books, narrative technique, architecture etc.) as the area in which the poetological discourse is implicit within an epic poem.
For a discussion, with bibliography, of closure in ancient literature see Fowler 1989 and 1997. For a very useful and influential contribution to the larger discussion of poetic closure see Smith 1968. Nagle 1983 investigates the open-ended closure in Aeneid 2 in the light of the model proposed by Smith 1968.
On this book in general, see Lloyd 1957a, 1957b; Hershkowitz 1991; Putnam 1995, 50-72.
Cf. also Harrison 2007a, 9-11 who examines the analogy between the progress of the Trojans’ voyage and of the epic plot in Virgil’s Aeneid.
Mynors’ Oxford edition 1969 is used throughout.
On the metanarrative status of Aen. 3. 1-5 see Deremetz 2001, 159.
On the parallelism between Aeneas’ voyage and Virgil’s poetic task see Deremetz 2001, 162-63. The arrival and departure elements somewhat formulaic in their expression are reiterated in every one of the nine major episodes en route of book 3. On this see Lloyd 1957a, 138-140.
As Smith 1968, 129-130 puts it, “By the device of ‘temporal puncuation’ the poet introduces allusions to the progress of a day, a season, a year, or some other well-defined and familiar unit of time”.
On the self–reflexive use of primus cf. Pincus 2004, 165-166 (esp. 166: “… the inaugural words of the poem consist of the proper name Cynthia and the self-reflexive annotation prima, which draws attention to the ‘firstness’ of the incipit”, commenting on Propertius 1.1.1.).
The verb incipere focuses the reader’s attention on the act of narration itself and the self-reflexive combination prima inceperat gives to the passage without doubt a programmatic overtone. On terminology designating the beginning or the closure of a narrative see Goldhill 1991, 286-300.
Kyriakidis 1998, 30.
(i) deserto in litore (Aen. 2.24) refers to the dolus of the Greeks; (ii) desertos … locos (Aen. 2.28) confirms the naivety of the Trojans and foreshadows the fall of Troy; (iii) desertas … terras (Aen. 3.4) foreshadows the future destiny of the Trojans. Repetition as a narrative tool serves to signal the ordering of Aeneas account. Thus it functions as a structural feature of the text by giving it the order and significance of plot. Cf. Brooks’ observations on textual repetition as quoted by Mitchell-Boyask 1996, 290-292.
For a fuller discussion of the recapitulating force of desertus see Gasti 2006, 128-129.
Mandelbaum 1971, 80. Cf. also Horsfall’s translation: “This was my last toil, this the turn in my long travels. From here I sailed and the god brought me to your shores. So father Aeneas, alone, told all his rapt audience of the gods’ oracles and explained his travels. Finally he fell silent, and having made an end here, took his rest” (Horsfall 2006, 37).
On the pausal effect of the verb conticuere (Aen. 2.1) in the division of the first two books see Kyriakidis 1998, 24-25. Cf. also Putnam 1995, 66: “calculated chiasmus, as conticuere omnes intenti … pater Aeneas becomes pater Aeneas intentis omnibus … conticuit, helps the reader work forward and backward into Aeneas’ unfolding story”.
Cf. Harrison 1980, 364 on how Virgil dismisses Aeneas by emphasizing three times (conticuit / quievit / factoque fine) that hero’s speech is finished.
Cf. Mitchell-Boyask 1996, 295-296 on how finis at Aen. 2.554 highlights the end of the narrative about Priam’s death and on how Virgil closes Aeneas’ story about his wanderings at Aen. 3.716-18 in a similar language that adds to the sense of narrative completion.
On tandem as a key word both in prologues and in endings see Heyworth 1993, 125.
It has been correctly observed by Geymonat 1993, 323 that at this pivotal stage of the poem (3.714) labor should be read as a metaphor for the toil involved in poetic activity.
Virgil’s Aeneid is strongly teleological since it has a strong narrative line which drives the story forward and it also has a “purpose” towards which the epic is directed.
Fata points yet further beyond narrative limits to fatum as the template pattern for the whole epic since as a generator? of the epic plot it has an important motivational function on the narrative and metanarrative levels of the Aeneid. The repetition of fata (3.7 incerti quo fata ferant / 3.9 et pater Anchises dare fatis vela iubebat / 3.717 fata renarrabat divum) links beginning and end of book 3 by providing a unified frame from a narratological point of view. Thus book 3 is structured as a self-contained unit within the poem as a whole. Lloyd 1957a, 136 observes that Virgil bound together all the nine major episodes of book 3 around a plot of progressive revelations to Aeneas of his destiny.
meta may also be used here in the sense of “change of direction”. On this see Horsfall 2006, 473-474 ad 714.
Cf. Ahl 2007, 76.
Cf. also Aen. 8.583 digressu … supremo where, as Laird 1999, 190 n. 72 observes, the expression might have an additional metaliterary significance. Catullus, poem 64.116-117 apologizes for a similar digression. On Catullus’ self-reflexive quality of the participle digressus see Deremetz 1995, 99.
Harrison 2007, 231 notes that the Cyclops Polyphemus bears the traces of his previous Vergilian (the pastoral Polyphemus of the Eclogues) and Theocritean existence.
On the form of Achaemenides’ episode and on the technique of epyllion used by Virgil here see Lloyd 1957b, 397-98.
On this see Spence 1999, 80-86.
Mandelbaum 1971, 79.
Cf. Servius’ commentary: renarrabat aut “re” vacat, ut “confieri possit” aut apparet Aeneam ante suis casibus cum Didone confuse locutum. Et ideo hic addidit “renarrabat”, quasi quae dixerat antea, nunc ex ordine referebat, quod notat in primo “immo age et a prima dic hospes origine nobis”. Sane in secundi principio duo poetae sunt versus, sicut hic tres, et similis est finis initio: “conticuit” et intentis”. Of particular interest is Fernandelli’s discussion 1999, 99-100 where he offers an exhaustive analysis of scholarly views on renarratio. Fernandelli 1999, 109 concludes that Aeneas’ ἀπόλογος as renarrare suggests the narrative repetition of a material already known to his audience “attraverso precedenti racconti”.
Renarrare responds to Aeneas’ intitial renovare dolorem (2.3) in the context of a larger ring-composition marking off the beginning and the end of Aeneas’ embedded narrative. The verbs renovare and renarrare as signals of division within the Aeneid contribute to a sense of internal segmentation that suggests that books 2 and 3 are to be read conjointly as parts of a whole. Taking further the remarks made by Deremetz 2001, 150 on renovare dolorem, I propose to interpret renarrare as a “reprise littéraire” describing the difficulty of the author in this process of “réécriture”.
The term is borrowed from Harrison 2002, 80 where it is used to describe Ovid’s poetic technique.
On docere as a key didactic verb, see Volk 2002, 123. This verb as a metageneric signal can be used to mark a text as having elements of the didactic tradition. On this see Harrison 2007, 24.
The narrator’s moral and philosophical reliability is expressed through the term docere which is the verbal sign of the author’s didactic intent and of his will to draw attention to his authoritative presence in Aeneas’ narrative, i.e. to his role as orchestrator of the text. Aeneas is not only defined as the narrating voice of books 2 and 3 (renarrabat) but he is described as Virgil’s double (re-narrabat) and thus as a product of the author’s creation. Nevertheless the narrator–text has been so carefully crafted by the author as to achieve the desired didactic effect on his naratees.
This technique is rightly defined by Harrison 2007, 1-2 as “generic enrichment”, i.e. as “the way in which generically identifiable texts gain literary depth and texture from detailed confrontation with, and consequent inclusion of elements from, texts which appear to belong to other literary genres”. Harrison 2007, 232 ff. elaborates on the generic “intrusions” detected in Aen. 10.636-42, 1.430-8, 6.706-9, 12.587-92 by investigating the incorporation of didactic elements in the higher genre of heroic epic.
On this see Geymonat 1993.
The term is borrowed from Thomas 1999, 218.
It is worth pointing to allusion across genre boundaries as a vital part of Callimachus’ poetic technique. On this kind of “hybridization” see Depew 1993, 58 and passim. On the importance of cross–generic allusion for Roman poetry see Thomas 1999, 219.
Hinds 1998, 1.
This is the view proposed by Brown 1990, 329 where he suggests that, in autobiographical terms, those contrasting poetic performances reflect Virgil’s progression from the didactic (Georgics) to the epic mode (Aeneid). Nevertheless Virgil’s literary and generic affiliations are much more complex than presented by Brown. On the parallelism between Iopas’ song and Aeneas’ narrative see also Adler 2003, 9-16, 105-108 (p. 108 where Adler notes that “both Iopas’ song and Aeneas’ song tell Dido that her love for Aeneas can have no fulfillment”).
See Perkell 1999, 48-49 (for the citation p. 49). On Dido as the intended listener and archetypal misreader of book 3 see Hexter 1999, 65-67.
Hexter 1999, 68 rightly observes that in book 3 “Aeneas is contrasted with Odysseus, Vergil vies with Homer, and the reader is free to surpass Dido in careful reading”. The reader who has noticed the Hesiodic content of docere has activated a perspective which conflicts with that of Dido [Aen. 4.1-2 At regina gravi iamdudum saucia cura / vulnus alit venis et caeco carpitur igni and 4.14 quae bella exhausta canebat: Dido’s passionate love (caeco … igni) for her guest is due to Aeneas’ bardic performance (canebat)]. Dido as a representative of the internal audience receives Aeneas’ tale with intimate personal concern (Aen. 2.10 sed si tantus amor casus cognoscere nostros) which is transformed into passionate love. In contrast to Dido’s empathetic / subjective response the expression cursusque docebat calls attention to the pleasure that comes from the distancing perception of Aeneas’ narrative and to the understanding or knowledge or lesson that distant observers may have (Here docere is directed towards the intellect of the learned extra–textual readers). On the erotogenic function of Aeneas’ bardic performance and on how Virgil transforms the erotic effect of Aeneas’ narrative into issues of narrative control in the Aeneid see Biow 1994, 227-244.
Spence 1999, 80-86 (esp. 83) focuses on how the opening word at is setting apart book 4 from the rest of the epic in terms of genre and theme.
For this definition of fata see Barchiesi 2001, 131.
Top of page