Title: Virgil's epic designs
First published: 1998
Description: This book by one of the preeminent Virgil scholars of our day is the first comprehensive study of ekphrasis in Virgil's final masterpiece, the Aeneid. Virgil uses ekphrasis - a self-contained aside that generates a pause in the narrative to describe a work of art or other object - to tell us something about the grander text in which it is embedded, says Michael C. J. Putnam. Individually and as a group, Virgil's ekphrases enrich the reader's understanding of the meaning of the epic.

Putnam shows how the descriptions of works of art, and of people, places, and even animals, provide metaphors for the entire poem and reinforce its powerful ambiguities.
Subjects: Aeneas (Legendary character) in literature, Ancient Rhetoric, Description (Rhetoric), Ekphrasis, Epic poetry, Latin, History, History and criticism, Latin Epic poetry, Rhetoric, Ancient, Technique, In literature, Virgil, Epic poetry, history and criticism
People: Virgil
Time periods: To 1500
LC classification: PA6825 .P844 1998