The Virgilian intertext

Abstract

The fact that Virgil's poetry exhibits many points of contact with the literature of the past is beyond dispute. What to make of this fact is much less certain. The view taken here is that the poetics of intertextuality is one of Virgil's most powerfully evocative tools for communicating ideas, for establishing his place in the literary canon, and for eliciting the reader's active collaboration in making meaning. In this essay I shall try to suggest something of what attention to the intertext can do to enhance the appreciation of Virgil's poetry. The phenomenon of 'intertextuality' (or 'allusion', 'imitation', 'reference', etc.) is present in all poetry and, to some extent, in all language. Some poets deliberately cultivate an allusive style, and thus encourage their readers' expectation of seeing through one text to its source or model. Virgil alludes constantly to a wide range of authors, and we are fortunate in possessing complete texts of many of his favourite works, both Greek and Latin. In the case of works now lost, we rely on ancient summaries and modern collections of fragments. In fact much of our knowledge about early Latin poetry derives from ancient students of Virgilian intertextuality, who quote many of the fragments we now possess to illustrate their influence on Virgil.

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