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Shakespeare and the Other Virgil: Pity and Imperium in Titus Andronicus

Gray, Patrick

Shakespeare and the Other Virgil: Pity and Imperium in Titus Andronicus Thumbnail


Authors

Patrick Gray



Contributors

P. Holland
Editor

Abstract

The influence of Virgil’s Aeneid in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus is more extensive than has been recognized to date, largely because Shakespeare studies, surprisingly, still has not entirely acknowledged or addressed the more ambiguous reading of the Aeneid put forward in recent decades by the so-called ‘Harvard School’ of Virgil criticism. This interpretation of the Aeneid draws attention to Virgil’s sympathy for human suffering, especially his pity for the fallen enemies of Rome. Revisionary critics such as Adam Parry, Wendell Clausen and Michael Putnam argue that the ‘melancholy’ tone of the poem, resigned, mournful and at times finely ironic, arises from a sense of sorrow at the human cost of establishing the Roman Empire, undermining its ostensible purpose as Augustan propaganda. Virgil’s ‘private voice’ of compassion undercuts his ‘public voice’ of praise for Augustus’s pax Romana. Although associated today with criticism that emerged in America in the wake of the Vietnam War, as Craig Kallendorf has shown, this ‘pessimistic’ reading of the Aeneid, what he calls ‘the other Virgil’, was available in England in the Renaissance, and arguably dates back to antiquity.1 As apparent from his allusions to Virgil in Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s reading of the Aeneid is in keeping with this vision. Virgil’s epic is the touchstone and the model for his own critique of Romanitas.

Citation

Gray, P. (2016). Shakespeare and the Other Virgil: Pity and Imperium in Titus Andronicus. In P. Holland (Ed.), Shakespeare Survey: Shakespeare and Rome (46-57). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/sso9781316670408.005

Acceptance Date Oct 1, 2015
Online Publication Date Oct 6, 2016
Publication Date Oct 1, 2016
Deposit Date Oct 1, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Pages 46-57
Series Title Shakespeare Survey
Series Number 69
Book Title Shakespeare Survey: Shakespeare and Rome
DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/sso9781316670408.005

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Copyright Statement
This article has been published in a revised form in Shakespeare survey https://doi.org/10.1017/SSO9781316670408.005. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. © Cambridge University Press 2016





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