Aeneas the subversive hero: the Aeneid as a 19th-century founding epic
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| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Virgil's Aeneid represents perhaps the most famous epic representation of the founding myth in world literature. But this work has one, even more, significant quality. Vergil created a work that historically justified and consolidated the imperial claim of the Roman state. For this reason, too, Vergil's epic soon became a foundational text for generations to come. With its school role, other dimensions were weakened. On the one hand, it was the most known work of antiquity; on the other, it suffered the fate of compulsory literature, becoming the target of various intellectual games and jokes. Parodic versions of the Aeneid appear in European literatures from the 16th century onwards. It is noteworthy, however, that one of such Aeneids, Ivan Kotljarevsky's Aeneid of the early 19th century, although its original role was comparable to that of the "upside-down" Aeneids, has returned in a strange detour to the role of a founding work, namely the founding work of Ukrainian national literature. The aim of this paper is to explore in more depth the features that made the parody a founding work of Ukrainian literature and to find possible elements of a new national identity. |
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