Email this article ‘Sideshadowing’ in Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’
Abstract
Unlike the Homeric epos, which is enclosed in an absolute past, the Aeneid forges a continuity between myth and the historical present and its plot is the fulfillment of a future which is preordained by Fate. As a result, Virgil’s epic has often been regarded as the expression of the immobilization of history rather than its open-endedness. Contrary to the idea of the Aeneid as a mere narrative teleology, the numerous untimely deaths of young heroes and their un-enacted futures bring about elements of temporal condensation that not only add uncertainty to the narrative, but undermine the idea of the present as the only inevitable realization of the past. The sideshadowing created by mors immatura opens loopholes in the poem and stands as a counterpoint to epic as the genre of absolute truths and historical determinism.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, Austin 1981.
E. Bakker, Storytelling in the Future: Truth, Time, and Tense in Homeric Epic, in E. Bakker - A. Kahane (eds.), Written Voices, Spoken Signs: Tradition, Performance, and the Epic Text, Cambridge 1997, 11-36.
A. Barchiesi, La traccia del modello. Effetti omerici nella narrazione virgiliana, Pisa 1984.
M. Bettini, Anthropology and Roman Culture: Kinship, Time, Images of the Soul, Baltimore 1991 (Antropologia e cultura romana. Parentela, tempo, immagini dell’anima, Roma 1988).
C.R. Beye, Homeric Battle Narrative and Catalogues, HSCP 68 (1964), 345-373.
C.R. Beye, The «Iliad», the «Odyssey», and the Epic Tradition, Garden City 1966.
A.J. Boyle, The Chaonian Dove. Studies in the «Eclogues», «Georgics», and «Aeneid» of Virgil, Leiden 1986.
S. Casali, Exploiting the Contradictions in Virgil’s «Doloneia», HSCP 102 (2004), 319-354.
G. Conte, The Rhetoric of Imitation. Genre and Poetic Memory in Virgil and Other Latin Poets, Ithaca 1986.
I. de Jong, Narrators and Focalizers. The Presentation of the Story in the «Iliad», London 1987.
I. de Jong, Homer, in I. de Jong - R. Nünlist - A. Bowie (eds.), Narrators, Narratees, and Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature: Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative, I, Leiden 2004, 13-24.
I. de Jong, The Homeric Narrator and His Own «Kleos», Mnemosyne 59 (2006), 188-207.
I. de Jong, Homer, in I. de Jong - R. Nünlist (eds.), Time in Ancient Greek Literature: Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative, II, Leiden 2007, 17-37.
M.L. Delvigo, Il Trionfo di Pallante (e l’esegesi di Virg. Aen. 11, 72 ss.), MD 42 (1999), 199-209.
F. Dunn, Rethinking Time, in R.B. Branham, Bakhtin and the Classics, Evanston 2002, 187-219.
U. Eco, The Myth of Superman, the Amazing Adventures of Superman, Diacritics 2 (1972), 14-22.
M. Erasmo, Reading Death in Ancient Rome, Columbus 2008.
P. Esposito, Scene di battaglia in Virgilio, in M. Gioseffi (a cura di), E io sarò tua guida. Raccolta di saggi su Virgilio e gli studi virgiliani, Milano 2000, 73-79.
D.C. Feeney, The Gods in Epic: Poets and Critics of the Classical Tradition, Oxford 1991.
B. Fenik, Typical Battle Scenes in the «Iliad». Studies in the Narrative Techniques of Homeric Battle Description, Wiesbaden 1968.
D. Fowler, Virgilian Narrative: Story-Telling, in C. Martindale (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Virgil, Cambridge 1977, 259-270.
M. Gioseffi, Alla ricerca del libro perduto. Romanzi di formazione nella letteratura latina, in B. Peroni (a cura di), Leggere l’adolescenza, Milano 2008, 105-128.
M. Gioseffi - G. Zanetto, Riflessioni attorno a un libro, QUCC 97 (2011), 167-184.
M. Gioseffi, Edipo ed Enea. Esperienze a confronto, in M. Mazzocut-Mis - G. Mormino (a cura di), Edipo. Re e vittima, Milano 2014, 51-73.
K.W. Gransden, Virgil’s «Iliad»: An Essay on Epic Narrative, Cambridge 1984.
J. Griffin, Homer on Life and Death, Oxford 1980.
P.R. Hardie, Virgil’s «Aeneid»: «Cosmos» and «Imperium», Oxford 1986.
P.R. Hardie, The Epic Successors of Virgil: A Study in the Dynamics of a Tradition, Cambridge 1993.
P.R. Hardie, Virgil: «Aeneid» Book IX, Cambridge 1994.
P.R. Hardie, Virgil, Oxford 1998.
P.R. Hardie, Rumour and Renown. Representations of «Fama» in Western Literature, Cambridge 2012.
S.J. Harrison, Vergil. Aeneid 10, Oxford 1991.
R. Heinze, Virgil’s Epic Technique, Berkeley 1993 (Vergils Epische Technik, Leipzig 1915).
N.M. Horsfall, Virgil, History and the Roman Tradition, Prudentia 8 (1976), 73-89.
N.M. Horsfall, Virgilio: l’epopea in alambicco, Napoli 1991.
N.M. Horsfall, Aeneid, in N.M. Horsfall (ed.), A Companion to the Study of Virgil, Leiden 2000, 201-216.
N.M. Horsfall, Virgil, Aeneid 6. A Commentary, Berlin 2013.
A. Kahane, Epic, Novel, Genre: Bakhtin and the Question of History, in R. Bracht Branham (ed.), The Bakhtin Circle and Ancient Narrative (Ancient Narrative Suppl. 3), Groningen 2005, 51-73.
D.F. Kennedy, Virgilian Epic, in C. Martindale (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Virgil, Cambridge 1997, 145-154.
F. Kermode, The Sense of an Ending. Studies in the Theory of Fiction with a New Epilogue, Oxford 1967.
M. Lang, Unreal Conditions in Homeric Narrative, GRBS 30 (1989), 5-26.
A. La Penna, L’impossibile giustificazione della storia, Bari 2005.
M.O. Lee, Fathers and Sons in Virgil’s «Aeneid»: «Tum genitor natum», Albany 1979.
S. Mack, Patterns of Time in Vergil, Hamden 1978.
P. Mazzocchini, Forme e significati della narrazione bellica nell’epos virgiliano. I cataloghi degli uccisi e le morti minori nell’Eneide, Fasano 2000.
K.M. Moir, The Epitaph of Publius Scipio, CQ 36 (1986), 264-266.
G.S. Morson, Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time, New Haven 1994.
G. Nagy, Reading Bakhtin Reading the Classics: An Epic Fate for Conveyors of the Heroic Past, in R.B. Branham, Bakhtin and the Classics, Evanston 2002, 71-96.
H.G. Nesselrath, Ungeschehenes Geschehen. «Beinahe-Episoden» im Griechischen und Römischen Epos von Homer bis zur Spätantike, Stuttgart 1992.
J.J. O’Hara, Death and the Optimistic Prophecy in Vergil’s «Aeneid», Princeton 1990.
B. Otis, Virgil: A Study in Civilized Poetry, Oxford 1964.
J. Peradotto, Man in the Middle Voice: Name and Narration in the Odyssey, Princeton 1990.
M. Petrini, The Child and the Hero. Coming of Age in Catullus and Vergil, Ann Arbor 1997.
D. Quint, Epic and Empire. Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton, Princeton 1993.
K. Raaflaub, Epic and History, in J. Foley (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Epic, Oxford 2005, 55-70.
J.D. Reed, Virgil’s Gaze: Nation and Poetry in the Aeneid, Princeton 2007.
S. Richardson, The Homeric Narrator, Nashville 1990.
A. Rossi, Context of War: Manipulation of Genre in Virgilian Battle Narrative, Ann Arbor 2004.
A.M. Seider, Memory in Vergil’s «Aeneid»: Creating the Past, Cambridge 2013.
D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Tu Marcellus eris, HSCP 90 (1986), 199-205.
R.J. Tarrant, Poetry and Power: Virgil’s Poetry in Contemporary Context, in C. Martindale (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Virgil, Cambridge 1997, 169-187.
A. Traina, «Si numquam fallit imago». Reflections on the Eclogues and Epicureanism, in P. Hardie (ed.), Virgil. Critical Assessment of Classical Authors, London 1999, 84-90.
M.M. Willcock, Battle Scenes in the «Aeneid», PCPS 29 (1983), 87-99.
G. Williams, Technique and Ideas in the «Aeneid», New Haven 1983.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7358/erga-2015-001-bott
Copyright (©) 2015 Erga-Logoi. Rivista di storia, letteratura, diritto e culture dell'antichità – Editorial format and Graphical layout: copyright (©) LED Edizioni Universitarie
Announcements
Erga/Logoi accepts books for review
The books are to be sent to the Executive Editor
Call for papers Vol. 13 (2025)
Authors have to read through the Information for Authors and the Author guidelines carefully before beginning the submission process.
Erga-Logoi. Rivista di storia, letteratura, diritto e culture dell'antichità
Registered by Tribunale di Milano (20/09/2012 n. 353)
Online ISSN 2282-3212 - Print ISSN 2280-9678
Executive Editor: Cinzia Bearzot
Editorial Staff: Paolo A. Tuci (Coordinator) - Marcello Bertoli - Livia De Martinis - Laura Loddo - Annabella Oranges - Alessandra Valentini
Editorial Board: Gaetano Arena - Ralf Behrwald - Margherita Cassia - Paolo Cesaretti - Bernard Eck - Michele Faraguna - Massimo Gioseffi - Dominique Lenfant - Lauretta Maganzani - Roberto Nicolai - Giovanni Parmeggiani - Marina Polito - Umberto Roberto - Francesca Rohr - Marco Sannazaro - Stefan Schorn - Paolo A. Tuci - Gianpaolo Urso - José Vela Tejada - Robert Wallace
Emeritus Editorial Board: Serena Bianchetti - Giovannella Cresci - Lia Raffaella Cresci - Ugo Fantasia - Franca Landucci - Rosalia Marino - Riccardo Vattuone
© 2001 LED Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto