ABSTRACT
This collection of essays from a diverse group of scholars represents a multidisciplinary redeployment of the Aeneid that aims to illuminate its importance to our present moment. It provides a rigorous and multifaceted answer to the question, "Why should we still think about the Aeneid?"
The book contains chapters detailing previously undocumented modern literary receptions of Vergil’s epic, addressing the Aeneid’s relevance to understanding modern political discourse, explaining how the Aeneid assists in making sense of the pressing current issues of trauma and damage to one’s sense of identity, and even looking at how the epic can shape our future. The chapters build upon and extend beyond reception studies to provide the most current and complete answer to the question of the epic’s current relevance.
The primary audiences for this collection are undergraduate students, graduate students, and professional academics from all disciplines. This collection should be of interest to readers whose academic interests include textual and cultural studies, classics, comparative literature, pedagogy, medical humanities, veterans studies, trauma studies, immigration studies, young adult fiction, world literature, communication and political discourse, citizenship studies, and ethnic studies.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|98 pages
The Aeneid and modern literature
chapter 3|22 pages
Yehuda Amichai's “The Times My Father Died” (1959)
chapter 4|18 pages
Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit
part II|66 pages
The Aeneid and modern political discourse and culture
part III|53 pages
The Aeneid and contemporary trauma and identity
part IV|36 pages
The Aeneid into the future