Historiographic Metafiction: A Comparative Analysis of the Iliad and the Aeneid (original) (raw)
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In 415B CE uripides produced the Alexandros, Palamedes and TrojanW omen followedbythe satyr-play Sisyphus.¹ All three tragedies draw on theT rojanm yth,displayu nity of locale with Troy as the placeo fa ctiona nd shared ominantt hemes, concepts and dramatic characters.C onsequently, scholarlyc onsensus from Gilbert Murray tilln ow,i ncludingt he influential monographb yR uthS codel,r egards this Euripidean production as presentingt he features of a 'connectedt rilogy'.² My purpose is,firstly,tocontributetothe argumentation in favour of thethematic andideological connection of these plays,which, Is hall argue, is of ad ifferentn ature than that of Aeschylean trilogies (it is for this reason that Ishall be usingthe term 'Trojan trilogy' in inverted commas). Secondly, Ishallexplore thegeneric transformation of the epicmaterial into tragedyinthe lightoffifth-centuryintellectual and ideological contexts, whichc ouldy ield insighti ntot he cultural processesf ilteringt he Euripidean reworkingo ft he Homeric source text.³
Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War: Dialogues on Tradition
2018
In this new volume, Jan Haywood and Naoíse Mac Sweeney investigate the position of Homer's Iliad within the wider Trojan War tradition through a series of detailed case studies. From ancient Mesopotamia to twenty-first century America, these examples are drawn from a range of historical and cultural contexts; and from Athenian pot paintings to twelfth-century German scholarship, they engage with a range of different media and genres. Inspired by the dialogues inherent in the process of reception, the book adopts a dialogic structure. In each chapter, paired essays by Haywood and Mac Sweeney offer contrasting authorial voices addressing a single theme, thereby drawing out connections and dissonances between a diverse suite of classical and post-classical Iliadic receptions.
In a1 995 article entitled 'Figure dell'intertestualità nell'epica romana',A lessan-dro Barchiesi flagged, as sites in the epic genre likelytoadmit intertextual references ,certain modalities of discourse associated with ideas of transmission and interpretation, such as " il fato, la fama, la memoria elaprofezia " .¹ Such discur-sive strategies we find in one of the textsw hich is in the background of the Ar-gonautica of Valerius Flaccus:Catullus' carmen 64.Thisepyllion had considerable influenceo nR oman literature because of the wayi nw hich its author connected fama and fatum. He presents the crossing of the sea ventured by the sailors of the Argo as ad aring act performed by sons of gods, whose exceptional fama he salutes,² and he places their expedition at the centre of his reflections on fatum,n ot onlyt hat of the members of the crew,b ut of humanity as a whole. In his view,t he history of mankind had trulyb egun at the end of the GoldenA ge,the turning point at which he locates this first military venture between Europe and Asia,w hich would inaugurate the Ageo fH eroes. Without treatingi nd etail his rewritingo ft he Hesiodic myth of the Ages, Io nlyr ecall that Catullus highlights,b yu sing ekphrasis and prophecy, the dark underbelly of the exploits of other heroes,n amelyT heseus and Achilles (breach of faith, vengeance, death, grief, and familial ruin). At the end of his text,C atullus givesanegative description of the present state of humanityw hich alludes to the contemporary situation at Rome. Abandonedbythe gods because of their im-pietas,mortals are engaged on apath of self-destruction which Catullus depicts in the colours of the Iron Age.³ Ac enturyl ater,the influenceo fC atullus is perceptible in the work of Seneca: the chorus of the Medea puts forward an equally negative reading of the evolution of human history.⁴ It wasi mpossible for Vale-rius Flaccus,when he chose to write an epic on the Argonautica,n ot to situate Barchiesi 1995, 51. Catul. 64.22‒24: On imis optato saeclorum temporen ati / heroes,s alvete, deum genus, ob ona matrum / progenies, salvete iterum… ('Oy ou whow ereb orn at at ime in the ages so much desired , heroes, hail! Race of the gods,ogreat progenyo fy our mothers,h ail as econd time!').
Review of "Virgil's Iliad: An Essay on Epic Narrative"
The Classical World, 1986
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Virgil's Aeneid and the Time of Empire
I will begin with the simple observation that almost all the texts discussed in the talks given at this conference ---and there have indeed been such an extraordinary range ---have been modern if not contemporary, involving the wars that formed and are still forming the world as we know it, the world that we know might end, and that still concern us intimately. This makes perfect sense. With the advent of total war, systematic genocide, and new technologies of destruction, the questions raised in this conference gain a new moral and political urgency.