Virgil's Double Cross: Design and Meaning in the Aeneid

Description

The message of Virgil's Aeneid once seemed straightforward enough: the epic poem returned to Aeneas and the mythical beginnings of Rome in order to celebrate the city's present world power and to praise its new master, Augustus Caesar. Things changed when late twentieth-century readers saw the ancient poem expressing their own misgivings about empi

David Quint is Sterling Professor of Comparative Literature at Yale University. His many books include Epic and Empire and Inside "Paradise Lost" (both Princeton).

"[David Quint's] book manages to be both challenging and accessible: there is much here to extend and enlighten study of the Aeneid at any level, and at an admirably affordable price." * Classics for All Reviews * "This is a superb book and rightfully belongs on the shelf of any serious Virgilian scholar. Every chapter offers something new, and it has enriched my understanding of the poem immensely."---Matthew P. Loar, Classical Journal "Virgil's Double Cross is a compact, elegant, and avowedly dark reading of the Aeneid as a poem."---Christopher Whitton, Greece and Rome