From Many Gods to One: Divine Action in Renaissance Epic
Tobias Gregory
Abstract
Epic poets of the Renaissance looked to emulate the poems of Greco-Roman antiquity, but doing so presented a dilemma: what to do about the gods? Divine intervention plays a major part in the epics of Homer and Virgil—indeed, quarrels within the family of Olympian gods are essential to the narrative structure of those poems—yet poets of the Renaissance recognized that the cantankerous Olympians could not be imitated too closely. The divine action of their classical models had to be transformed to accord with contemporary tastes and Christian belief. This book offers a comparative study of poeti ... More
Epic poets of the Renaissance looked to emulate the poems of Greco-Roman antiquity, but doing so presented a dilemma: what to do about the gods? Divine intervention plays a major part in the epics of Homer and Virgil—indeed, quarrels within the family of Olympian gods are essential to the narrative structure of those poems—yet poets of the Renaissance recognized that the cantankerous Olympians could not be imitated too closely. The divine action of their classical models had to be transformed to accord with contemporary tastes and Christian belief. This book offers a comparative study of poetic approaches to the problem of epic divine action. Through readings of Petrarch, Vida, Ariosto, Tasso, and Milton the author describes the narrative and ideological consequences of the epic's turn from pagan to Christian. Drawing on scholarship in several disciplines—religious studies, classics, history, and philosophy, as well as literature—the book sheds light on two subjects of enduring importance in Renaissance studies: the precarious balance between classical literary models and Christian religious norms; and the role of religion in drawing lines between allies and others.
Keywords:
Epic poets,
Renaissance,
Greco-Roman antiquity,
divine intervention,
Homer,
Virgil,
Olympian gods,
narrative structure,
classical literary models,
Christian belief
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2006 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780226307558 |
| Published to Chicago Scholarship Online: February 2013 |
DOI:10.7208/chicago/9780226307565.001.0001 |
