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The Poetics of Empire: Analysing Virgil's Aeneid and its Political Dimensions

This academic study delves into the intertwining realms of politics and poetics in Virgil's Aeneid, exploring the themes of power, authority, and cultural prestige. By examining aspects such as the unification of Italy and Rome, the Punic wars, and Augustus as an 'idea,' the analysis showcases how poetic language can shape political ideologies. The narrative is dissected to reveal underlying political conservatism and how literature, particularly epic poetry, serves as a performative and productive tool in shaping societal structures.

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The Poetics of Empire: Analysing Virgil's Aeneid and its Political Dimensions

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  1. Politics and Poetics 3 The poetics of empire: Virgil’s Aeneid

  2. The politics of form/narrative: EPIC • Competing/interacting media: writing and song • Epic projects cultural prestige, power, authority: does the genre therefore tend to (re)produce political conservatism? • Callimacheanismvs classicism: the non-purity of genre

  3. The politics of content E.g.: the unification of Italy and Rome (bks7-12); the Punic wars (bk4); the battle of Actium (bks1, 8); the prophecy of Anchises (bk6); the shield of Aeneas (bk8)… Bear in mind: • Augustus as an ‘idea’ • Power as diffuse • Literature as performative/productive rather than simply ‘representative’ of politics • The nature of poetic language • The politics of theAeneidas inseparable from the politics of reading the poem, and from the politics of its reception.

  4. The future in the past

  5. Aeneid 8.306-61 • Look at how the poet highlights both difference and continuity between past and present. • What might an ‘optimistic’ and a ‘pessimistic’ reading of this passage look like?

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