Epic transfigured: Tragic allusiveness in Vergil's 'Aeneid'

The study starts from the premise that there is no modern treatment of the significance of the influence of Greek tragedy on the poem. Allusion proves a fruitful methodological instrument for locating the borrowed material. The allusive evidence reveals that the tragic mode is carefully interwoven within the poetic texture, visible in the inclusion in the Vergilian narrative of situations of disruption typical of the tragic plot, poet's technique of characterization, and his adoption of symbolic and imagistic material peculiar to tragedy.;Chapter one examines Vergil's use of 'tragic' sacrificial imagery employing Girard's theory of sacrificial crisis. A detailed analysis of the epic's sacrificial imagery and of the text's allusions to Aeschylus' Oresteia demonstrates that Vergil utilizes the problems of the trilogy in order to expose the ineffectiveness of the process of scapegoating for terminating reciprocal violence.;Chapter two traces the allusive presence of the figure of Sophocles' Ajax through the epic. Ajax's imprint is paramount in the characterization of a number of epic characters (Dido, Nisus and Euryalus, Pallas, Mezentius, Turnus, and Aeneas), as Vergil strips the Homeric material of its epic quality and invests it with tragic import.;Chapter three demonstrates that Vergil manipulates the function of maenadism as it operates in Greek tragedy. Primarily associated with female figures, maenadic activity in Vergil marks the collapse of polarities between male and female, dissolves the gender-specific spatial differentiation, negates male authority, and results in situations of crisis.;The study offers evidence that Homer's predominance as the matrix for Vergil's creation is interwoven with a recasting of material ordinarily associated with a 'tragic' context: the delineation of the solitude of a hero portrayed as removed from his social habitat; the exposure in the narrative of situations of sacrificial crisis where norms are inverted; finally, the appropriation of 'tragic' imagery. Allusion is an effective medium through which we may locate this interlacing of 'tragic' strands within the poetic fabric and thus arrive at novel ways of interpreting a poem which transfigures its epic mold.