Earlier in the 20th century there seemed to be a correlation of Vergil the primary Latin author, America a world power, and American Latinists setting the terms of scholarly debate [this seems somehow reasonable correlation]; this configuration yielded to US as the even more transcendent world power, while Ovid replaced Vergil, and Italian and British scholars replaced American scholars in establishing the agenda for Latin studies. What explains, he asked, the seeming strangeness of this new configuration? Why, when American political and military power seems unchallenged in the world, should Vergil recede in popularity as a focus of study among Latinists, and why should American Latinists cede intellectual dominance to others, namely British and Italian scholars? I would like to challenge one of these premises--that Vergil is in some sense temporarily passé.
I propose that it is perhaps premature to declare Vergil's passing from
scholarly attention. Not only are some people still writing
on Vergil, but twenty years seems rather a brief period on which to base
such a judgment on such a major author. Secondly, I would like to think
about the possible correlations between
political circumstances and readings of Vergil. Perhaps we misunderstand
what are the propitious political situations for Vergil's texts?
It has been conventionally assumed that Vergil is the poet par excellence of imperial nations. Yet Joe has precisely, interestingly proposed that Vergil's popularity has passed for now because the Cold War is over, and Vergil is essentially a Cold War poet, his poems being characterized by dilemmas, polarities, and consequent critical dissension (optimism vs. pessimism); while Ovid is now in vogue because his poetry encodes accommodation to empire, hence to the current singular world power status of the United States. This is a very interesting observation and perhaps very true. (It reflects not a traditional but rather a late 20th century reading of Vergil, does it not?) Vergil began his poetic career during the civil wars, a time of conflict and political uncertainty. Ovid, on the other hand, although he has been and still is read by many as anti-Augustan, began his career when the empire was already an established fact. So perhaps it is even to be expected that Vergil should be read in a period of conflict, while Ovid should be read in period of one transcendent power/ empire.
(Nevertheless, the current world political situation may have nothing to do with Vergil scholarship. It may be simply that Vergil studies have for the moment benefited maximally from many new critical methodologies that have been applied to his texts, so that the same people who wrote on Vergil have now moved on to another author perforce. In some cases that is Ovid. In mine it would be Homer.)
My main points of argument will be that:
#1) there is no stable correlation of readings of Vergil and political circumstances.
#2) Vergil's texts can be and have been read as supportive of different kinds of governments and moral positions. Why are Vergil's texts susceptible to contradictory readings?
This possibility of reading a text in opposing ways is modeled in Vergil's texts in such a way as to suggest that he fully anticipated this possibility and likely (?) composed his texts purposefully to achieve this effect ("dialectical poetics": Annabel Patterson).
Vergil invites contradictory readings, thereby problematizes political and moral judgments. The contradictions point above all to political and moral values in conflict. Apparently normative values of the text stand in provocative opposition to a "countercoherence" (Cahoon) of the victimized. Hence his interest for postcolonial, feminist readers.
It is precisely these features -- multiple possible meanings and urgency of moral questions posed -- that guarantee an ongoing readership, whether readers will want to isolate and inventory the contradictions/oppositions, or rather argue for a univocal right reading. Therefore, Vergil will always be read (as long as reading is being done).
Why (I think) this is the Vergilian Century
This is the Vergilian century, I claim, not only because Vergil has
dominated Latinists' interests or because the US is the great power, but
because the readings of Vergil available now really are the fullest, most
comprehensive, satisfactory readings of Vergil ever achieved. This
century has conceived of reading strategies that have been immensely fruitful
for dealing with the particular kinds of challenges that Vergil's texts
pose, so that it is now possible to isolate or
describe exactly how it comes about --the critical question, as I see
it--that Vergil's texts continually generate critical and moral controversy.
Reading the whole poem, not just Books 2,4, and 6, is a new strategy.
The traditional conceptions of unity, coherence, resolved closure have
been put into question. Adam Parry's "Two Voices" was a stimulating
beginning for an appreciation of the contradictory aspects of Vergil's
texts. Michael Putnam focused the attention of scholars on the problematic
moral status of the death of Turnus, a watershed in Aeneid criticism,
whether critics read the scene his way or not. Professional and rather
exhaustive studies of allusion, intertextuality, symbolism, genre have
all been productive in various ways. (My fantasy is that) Vergil
might not be too dissatisfied with where we are now.