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Save Virgil's Arcadia For Later Supranational Utopia: Virgil’s Arcadia’
Magda El-Nowieemy
Professor of Latin Literature
Faculty of Arts
Alexandria University, Egypt
E-mail: magda_now@yahoo.com
Asa way of beginning, let me start with JF. Lyotard’s words
as they have a direct bearing on my argument:
"It must be clear that it is our business not to supply reality
but to invent allusions to the conceivable which cannot be
presented"
In my present paper I would like to put a classical notion to a
new use. As always the case, utopia” is one of the most appealing
and influential ideas since Antiquity. It has been developed in
almost all literatures over the centuri
utopia’. Utopian writing is even considered by some a specific
since Plato’s basic text of
“This paper was initially read at the 17" ICLA Congress, on August 10,
2004 in Hong Kong. I am grateful to those who attended my presentation
and offered useful comments and valuable suggestions. A special word of
thanks is owed to the organizers of the Congress.This paper has been
electronically published at first on the Congress Website: www. In.edu.hk/
eng/stafl/eoyang/iclalicla__menu.himl
“ J.B, Lyotard, “Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism
Modernism / Postmodernism, ed. P. Brooker (Longman 1992) 150.
© Utopia is derived from two Greek words ou, which means no, and
topos, which means a place. So it originally means no place, i.e. a place,
‘hich is not located on any real map. Hence it has become an ideal place,
aan imaginative one, and not in the conceivable world.
‘In his Republic, Plato put his contemplated utopia in the form of a state
governed by philosophers. In his perspective, justice is required to attain
happiness. In its turn, justice requires a communal way of life, including
the community of wives and children: see: Plato, Republic (2 vols.), ed
with an Eng. trans. by P. Shorey (LCL 1946 & 1953 repr.). For a good literary genre“. Utopia raises a number of ques social,
political, intellectual, ete’. Although utopia is not a social fact, but
a social idea, the status of the society in which the utopian writer
lives concerns us a great deal
Going through the utopian imagination of Classical
Antiquity: Plato's, Virgil’s and Ovid's, we discern more than one
sort of utopia. They can be classified under utopia of time, and
utopia of space:
1-For the first sort, we may discern utopia into the past, and
utopia into the future. The utopia of time is best attested in Graeco-
Roman traditions by the Golden Age myth, known almost to all
literatures.
ions
study of Plato’s utopian state, see: Julia Annas, An Introduction to Plato’s
Republic (Oxford 1982) 170 tt
“ Giovanna Pezzuoli, “Prisoner in Utopia, in: Theory and Practice of
Feminist Literary Criticism, ed. G. Mora & K. Hooft (Michigan 1982)
36, draws the reader’s attention to the difference between utopian
‘writings and utopian experiments.
‘© Pezauoli (ibid.) 37, points out that it is not an accident that the epochs
in which utopian writings are concentrated coincide with periods of
regression following large social transformations, such as the Counter-
Reformation or the epoch following the French Revolution,
“© Virgil’s and Ovid's utopias are mainly centered about the so-called
‘myth of the Golden Age, discussed below. Cf. the utopian dream of peace
and quiet of Theocritus Idyll 1. See, G. Lawall, Theocritus Coan
Pastorals (The Center For Hellenic Studies 1967) 1
For a good study of the Golden Age, see among others: H. Baldry,
“Who Invented the Golden Age?”, CQ 46 (1952) 83-92. He defines the
term (p.83) as an imaginary existence different from the hardships of real
life - an existence blessed with Nature's bounty, untroubled by strife or
‘want. Naturally this happy state is always placed somewhere or sometime
outside normal human experience, whether “off the map” in some remote
quarter of the world, or in Elysium after death, or in the dim future or the
distant past. Such an imaginary time of bliss in the past or the future has
become known as the ‘golden age’. See also: J. Fontenrose, “Work,
Justice, and Hesiod’s Five Ages,” CPh 69 (1974) 1-16; C. Querbach,
Hesiod’s Myth of the Four Races”, CJ 81 (1985) 1-12; C. A. Huttar,
Tolkien, Epic Traditions, and Golden Age Myths”, in: Twentieth-
Century Fantasists, ed. K. Filmer (Macmillan 1992) 92-107, deals with It is the idea of a happily glorious remote past, or it could be
related to the future, which means the possibility of the return of the
Golden Age as perceived in Virgil's Eclogue 4, the so-called
"messianic Eclogue", where Virgil prophesized a new and blessed
era by the birth of a certain child (Ecl. 4.4ff.). This was the first
appearance of the Golden Age in Virgil”. Although much literature
has been written on this Eclogue, still scholars believe that it will
always remain mysterious'""’.
Roman poets are interested in describing the conditions of
life of the Golden Age”, either the idealized "good old days", or
the idealized "future". From this imaginary time of bliss, in the
past or the future, it has become a commonplace to describe an
outstanding period of history or literature as a "golden age"\'*”
the Golden Age motif as one widespread in the world’s cultures and
defines it as follows: “It is the idea that the world as we Know it
represents a woeful decline from a glorious remote past”. p.93.
© The messianic Eclogue 4 was interpreted in the middle Ages as
foretelling the birth of Christ.
For the identity of the child as a major topic of discussion see: R.D.
Williams, The Eclogues and Georgics (Macmillan 1987) 104 f.
For the Golden Age as a community among all men and between men
and nature in Virgil, see: Christine Perkell, The Poet's Truth (California
1989) 52 tf., 64 ff., 90 ff. See also, F. Brenk, Clothed in Purple Light
(Stuttgart 1999) 82 ff.
"Phe literature on Eclogue 4 is extensive and exhausting. For comment,
consult for one: A. Mckay, Vergil’s aly (Adams & DartI971) 25f. ,
Brenk (1999) 82 ff.
"See Tibullus L3.35tf., LIO.Lt Ovid, Amores 3.8.35tt
Metamorphoses L891. For a good and well-documented study of the
Golden Age motif in both Greek and Roman literatures, see: Patricia
Johnston, Vergil’s Agricultural Golden Age (Leiden 1980) passim.
“©, Platter, “Officium in Catullus and Propertius: A Foucauldian
Reading”, CPh 90 (1995) 211-224, declares how Roman poets appeared
to represent themselves as being alienated from Roman political life of
their times.
©9 See Baldry (1952) 83.
