Generic Multiplicity in the Proem to the <I>Aeneid</I>

This paper shows how the proem to the <i>Aeneid</i> encourages the reader to contextualize Vergil’s poem within the nexus of the various strands of the hexameter tradition. This analysis complicates the conventional view that the <i>incipit</i> of the <i>Aeneid</i> is a straightforward statement of the poem’s Homeric pedigree. Rather, the poem’s beginning transforms the generic ‘horizon of expectation’ (Jauss 1982, cf. Cohen 1987) for Homerizing epic by extending this horizon to incorporate other traditions of hexameter poetry, namely didactic, philosophical, and historical epic, as well as Callimachean aetiological poetry. Received opinion rightly stresses that the first two words of the <i>Aeneid</i> signal the poem’s conflation of the two Homeric epics. However, the first person (<i>cano</i>) of <i>Aeneid</i> 1.1, in addition to evoking the proems to the Cyclic <i>Ilias Parva</i> and Apollonius’ <i>Argonautica</i>, also introduces a didactic element. After all, the didactic epics of Hesiod, Aratus, Nicander, and Lucretius - in addition to Vergil’s own <i>Georgics</i> - are all introduced with a first person verb. Additionally, the phrase <i>qui primus</i> of <i>Aeneid</i> 1.1 echoes via its metrical sedes Lucretius’ famous formulation of Ennius (<i>De Rerum Natura</i> 1.117). This Lucretian notice provides a context in which to analyze this (apparent) generic transgression: the line occurs embedded within a discussion of the misguided Pythagoreanism, yet poetic excellence, of Ennius. Hence <i>qui primus</i> in <i>Aeneid</i> 1.1 signals the polyvalent nature of Ennian historical-philosophical-didactic epic, while simultaneously subsuming these three strands of the hexameter tradition into its first line, thereby asserting the poem’s pan-generic preeminence. Furthermore, the repetition of the adjective <i>multus</i>, -<i>a</i>, -<i>um</i> in the proem to the <i>Aeneid</i> (<i>Aeneid</i> 1.3 and 1.5), while rightly seen as a citation of the repeated adjective πολύς, -ή, -ύ in the proem to the <i>Odyssey</i>, can also be read as a meta-literary citation of the multiplicity of hexameter traditions evoked by the poem’s first line. The <i>Aeneid</i>’s invocation of the Muse (<i>Musa mihi causas memora</i>, 1.8), conventionally read as a nod to the Homeric <i>Musenanruf</i>, further extends the claims to generic comprehensiveness in the first line of the poem: <i>causas</i> is a calque of the title of Callimachus’ aetiological masterpiece,<i>αἴτια</i>. In addition, the injunction <i>mihi</i> … <i>memora</i> is a nearly exact translation of ἀναμνήσαιτέ μ[ε], Callimachus’ request in the <i>Aitia</i> that the Muses reveal to him the kind of poetry he should write (P. Oxy. 20.2262, line 25). Thus, at a moment when the <i>Aeneid</i> appears to be its most Homeric, the Muse of Callimachean πολυειδία is invoked as well. This selective expansion of generic boundaries at the beginning of the <i>Aeneid</i> paves the way for further ‘generic enrichment’ later in the poem. Harrison (2007, 207-240), for instance, has discussed the incorporation into the <i>Aeneid</i> of hymn, bucolic, elegy, lyric, tragedy, and even epigram, while Austin (1964, at 2.310-312) sees evidence of Horatian satire in the <i>Aeneid</i>. Rossi, too, has shown that the prose genre of historiography is a constant point of reference in the battle narratives in the poem (2004). The proem to the <i>Aeneid</i>, then, rather than straightforwardly proclaiming the poem’s Homeric pedigree, is programmatic for the subsequent generic transgressions in the poem. Works Cited Austin, R.P.G. (1964) <i>Aeneidos Liber Secundus</i>, Oxford. Cohen, R. (1987) ‘Do Postmodern Genres Exist?’, Genre 20: 241-58. Harrison, S.J. (2007) <i>Generic Enrichment in Vergil & Horace</i>, Oxford. Jauss, H.R. (1982) <i>Towards an Aesthetic of Reception</i>, Minneapolis. Rossi, A. (2004) <i>Contexts of War. Manipulation of Genre in Virgilian Battle Narrative</i>, Ann Arbor.