Contexts of War: Manipulation of Genre in Virgilian Battle Narrative (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780472113590)

Moving beyond the usual pairing of Homer and Virgil, Iliad and Aeneid, Rossi refutes the notion that Homer is the only code model for the latter. This in-depth study reveals that Virgilian battle narrative assimilates conventions of other literary genres, namely historiography and, indirectly, tragedy. Rossi demonstrates how Virgilian war narrative allows multiple and diachronic visions of reality, and hence multiple systems of signification, to co-exist in the text. In this way, Virgil's Aeneid detaches itself from the Homeric epic and forcefully asserts its own relative modernity.
Andreola Rossi is Assistant Professor, Department of Classics, Harvard University.


Author: Andreola Rossi
ISBN-10: 0472113593
ISBN-13: 9780472113590
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Language: English
Published: 12/22/2003
Pages: 236
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.38lbs
Size: 9.24h x 6.44w x 0.89d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 07/01/2004 pg. 2041