Vergil's "Aeneid" and the "Argonautica" of Apollonius Rhodius

Bibliographic Data

ID9290560
AuthorsCharles Rowan Beye
Year2004
Volume97
Issue4
Pages450-450
Publication date2004-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeREVIEW
Review ofVergil's Aeneid and the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius (Arca, 39), Damien Nelis, 2001
VenueThe Classical World (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0009-8418 • E-ISSN: 1558-9234
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/4352884
OpenAlexW594569318
LanguageEN

This major study of the Aeneid's indebtedness to the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius follows on from G.N. Knauer's monumental study of Homeric influence on Vergil, Die Aeneis und Homer (1964). But extra levels of complexity are involved. Apollonius himself was engaged in thoroughgoing imitation of Homer, as Nelis demonstrates in considerable detail. A deep understanding of Apollonius' interaction with IIomer is essential for the exploration of how Vergil, in full awareness of Apollonius' use of Homer, reworked the characters and episodes of the Argonautica. Structurally also the Aeneid adapts not only the broad outlines of the Iliad and of the Odyssey, but also and simultaneously that of the Argonautica. A study of the Aeneid in relation to the Argonautica must therefore also be a study of the Argonautica in relation to the Homeric poems; and our understanding of Vergil's imitation of Homer is profoundly affected by the Apollonian dimension

Art · Literature · Classical Antiquity Studies · History · Philosophy

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