Preposterous Virgil: Reading through Stoppard, Auden, Wordsworth, Heaney

This book explores how modern responses to Virgil's Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid can enhance our understanding of his works and reveal the literary receptions that shape our interpretations. It offers a practical demonstration of classical reception and its value as a critical procedure, reconfiguring Virgil's texts in challenging new ways and offering new appreciations of the classical traditions that inform key texts in the English canon.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 30 June 2022
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

This comprehensive study in reception delves into the intricate analysis of English literature, employing close readings of Virgil's texts as a means to interrogate their meaning. Through a series of four case studies, complemented by comprehensive introductory and concluding chapters, this book showcases how interpreting Virgil's Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid through contemporary perspectives can shed light on aspects of his works that might otherwise go unnoticed or be overlooked. Juan Christian Pellicer delves into our perceptions of the three Virgilian genres—pastoral, georgic, and epic—and explores how modern reconfigurations of these genres can enrich our readings of Virgil's works. Moreover, he emphasizes how our own ideas about Virgil are shaped by the literary receptions through which we approach his texts. This book serves as a practical demonstration of classical reception and its immense value as a critical methodology. By critically examining the effectiveness of modern responses to Virgil as tools for reading his texts, Pellicer challenges a fundamental assumption in reception studies of classical authors: that our understanding of their work can be enhanced by the receptions through which we perceive them. The reader will be captivated by the innovative reinterpretations of Virgil's texts, which offer fresh perspectives on the classical traditions that inform key texts in the English canon.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781848856523