Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-l4ctd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-07T13:26:46.532Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Virgil in a cold climate: fascist reception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2009

Richard F. Thomas
Richard F. Thomas
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
Get access

Summary

The new spirit, to which the future belongs, finds its origin in the Orient and is the deadly enemy of pure Hellenism.

U. VON WILAMOWITZ-MOELLENDORFF, Hellenistische Dichtung I (Berlin 1924) 2

The Hellenic ideal of culture should also remain preserved for us in its exemplary beauty … The struggle that rages today is for very great aims. A culture combining millenniums and embracing Hellenism and Germanism is fighting for its existence.

A. HITLER, Mein Kampf (Munich 1925) 423

  • We believe in the future of the Germans.

  • We know that the German has powers which designate him to lead the community of the occidental nations towards a more beautiful life.

  • We acknowledge in spirit and in deed the great traditions of our nation which, through the amalgamation of Hellenic and Christian origins in the Germanic character, created western man.

COUNT CLAUS SCHENK VON STAUFFENBERG, from Stauffenberg's Oath, some days earlier in the month of his failed attempt on the life of Hitler on 20 July 1944

Vietnam to Pasewalk

F. Serpa has written of Virgilian studies: “In studying this poet only through our own contemporary experiences, we run the risk of speaking too much of ourselves, indirectly, of our anguishes and our rationalizing schemes, and too little of him. It is a risk which certain modern critics, even intelligent and original ones, have not avoided.” This is quite true, but it is not a critical tendency confined to any place or any time, nor to any particular political or ideological outlook. In short it is far from being applicable only to oppositional or “post-Vietnam” reading, as the contemporary Augustans would like to think of it.

Type
Chapter
Information
Virgil and the Augustan Reception , pp. 222 - 259
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×