The last Trojan hero : a cultural history of Virgil's Aeneid / Philip Hardie.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hardie, Philip R., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Aeneas (Legendary character).

Aeneas.

Virgil--Appreciation--History.

Virgil.

Virgil--Criticism and interpretation.

Virgil--Influence.

Virgil. Aeneis.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (416 p.)

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : I.B. Tauris, 2014.

Summary:

"'I sing of arms and of a man: his fate had made him fugitive: he was the first to journey from the coasts of Troy as far as Italy and the Lavinian shores.' The resonant opening lines of Virgil's 'Aeneid' rank among the most famous and consistently recited verses to have been passed down to later ages by antiquity. And after the 'Odyssey' and the 'Iliad', Virgil's masterpiece is arguably the greatest classical text in the whole of Western literature. This sinuous and richly characterised epic vitally influenced the poetry of Dante, Petrarch and Milton. The doomed love of Dido and Aeneas inspired Purcell, while for T.S. Eliot Virgil's poem was 'the classic of all Europe'. The poet's stirring tale of a refugee Trojan prince, 'torn from Libyan waves' to found a new homeland in Italy, has provided much fertile material for writings on colonialism and for discourses of ethnic and national identity. The 'Aeneid' has even been viewed as a template and a source of philosophical justification for British and American imperialism and adventurism. In his major new book Philip Hardie explores the many remarkable afterlives - ancient, medieval and modern - of the 'Aeneid' in literature, music, politics, the visual arts and film -- Dust jacket."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Contents:

Introduction

Underworlds

'La donna è mobile': Versions of Dido

The many faces of Aeneas

Empire and nation

Imperium sine Fine: The Aeneid and Christianity

The Aeneid and New Worlds

Parody and burlesque

Art and landscape.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-237) and index.

ISBN:

9780755693900

0755693906

9780857735065

0857735063

OCLC:

881415309