Vergil Reading His Twentieth-Century Readers: A Study of Eclogue 9

Abstract

Vergil's texts have been welcomed as moral and spiritual allies both by readers of unchallenged imperial powers (such as Rome or Britain) as well as by Americans during the period of the Cold War, in which the outcome of the contest between East and West was seemingly in the balance. Perhaps one reason for this perceived relevance of the Aeneid in different political circumstances is that key passages of Vergil's texts invite contradictory readings. Several passages, crucially significant for interpretation of Vergil's texts as a whole, are in fact famously contested. Among these one might number the labor improbus passage of Georgie 1, Aeneas' departure from the Gates of Ivory in Aeneid 6, or his killing of Turnus in Aeneid 12. These passages are particularly consequential for the critical optimism/pessimism controversy that dominated Vergil studies in the latter half of the twentieth century.1 How do the contradictory readings arise? Why are Vergil's texts susceptible to contradictory readings of the sort that break along the optimistic/ pessimistic divide?2 In what follows I attempt to show that Vergil