The Primacy of Vision in Virgil's Aeneid - Couverture souple

Smith, Riggs Alden

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0292726228 ISBN 13 : 9780292726222

Editeur : University of Texas Press, 2006

Synopsis

One of the masterpieces of Latin and, indeed, world literature, Virgil's Aeneid was written during the Augustan "renaissance" of architecture, art, and literature that redefined the Roman world in the early years of the empire. This period was marked by a transition from the use of rhetoric as a means of public persuasion to the use of images to display imperial power. Taking a fresh approach to Virgil's epic poem, Riggs Alden Smith argues that the Aeneid fundamentally participates in the Augustan shift from rhetoric to imagery because it gives primacy to vision over speech as the principal means of gathering and conveying information as it recounts the heroic adventures of Aeneas, the legendary founder of Rome.

Working from the theories of French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Smith characterizes Aeneas as a voyant-visible, a person who both sees and is seen and who approaches the world through the faculty of vision. Engaging in close readings of key episodes throughout the poem, Smith shows how Aeneas repeatedly acts on what he sees rather than what he hears. Smith views Aeneas' final act of slaying Turnus, a character associated with the power of oratory, as the victory of vision over rhetoric, a triumph that reflects the ascendancy of visual symbols within Augustan society. Smith's new interpretation of the predominance of vision in the Aeneid makes it plain that Virgil's epic contributes to a new visual culture and a new mythology of Imperial Rome.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

RIGGS ALDEN SMITH is Associate Professor of Classics and Associate Dean of the Honors College at Baylor University.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of Texas Press
• Date d'édition: 2006
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0292726228
• ISBN 13: 9780292726222
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 271
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible