Darkness visible : a study of Vergil's Aeneid / W.R. Johnson.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Print version record.

Preface -- Abbreviations Used in Notes -- I. Eliot's Myth and Vergil's Fictions -- II. Lessing, Auerbach, Gombrich: The Norm of Reality and the Spectrum of Decorum -- III. Varia Confusus Imagine Rerum: Depths and Surfaces -- 1. The Opening of Book 12 -- 2. Dissolving Pathos -- 3. Blurred Images -- 4. Aeneas and the Monuments -- 5. The End of Book 12 -- IV. The Worlds Vergil Lived In -- 1. Quod Credas: The Social Order -- 2. Quo Tendas: The Metaphysical Order -- 3. Quod Agas: The Moral Order -- Notes.

One of the best books ever written on one of humanity's greatest epics, W.R. Johnson's classic study of Vergil's Aeneid challenges centuries of received wisdom. Johnson rejects the political and historical reading of the epic as a record of the glorious prehistory of Rome and instead foregrounds Vergil's enigmatic style and questioning of the heroic myths. With an approach to the text that is both grounded in scholarship and intensely personal, and in a style both rhetorically elegant and passionate, Johnson offers readings of specific passages that are nuanced and suggestive as he focuses on the "somber and nourishing fictions" in Vergil's poem. A timeless work of scholarship, Darkness Visible will enthrall classicists as well as students and scholars of the history of criticism-specifically the way in which politics influence modern readings of the classics-and of poetry and literature.

eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - Worldwide