Propertius and the Virgilian Sensibility
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2024
These concluding remarks offer a sideways look at some issues raised by this book, taking their cue from the surviving iconography of the monument at the centre of Propertius 4 – the Temple of Palatine Apollo – to address the ideological implications of the different handling by Propertius and Virgil of Augustan mythmaking. Ultimately the many traces of Virgilian sensibility in Propertius, and of Propertian sensibility in Virgil, are easier to identify than to interpret. Yet Propertius’ obsessive Virgilian intertextuality (here distilled into a multi-part typology), while showing that the elegist is haunted by his epic confrère, is also an exercise of control that transcends generic anxiety to recognize and enact Virgil’s status as a classic of the Roman literary canon. Propertius’ Virgilian intertextuality, extending as it does to structural and stichometric parallels, may also have implications for the textual criticism of both authors, at least insofar as a Virgilian reading of Book 4 obtains. These last reflections find their way to a comparison with Shostakowich’s Fourteenth Symphony, where uncanny thematic, political and structual parallels with Propertius 4 give pause for thought.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.