The Death of Virgil (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)

At a glance:

Characters Discussed

Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) (VUR-gihl; PEWB-lee-us vur- JIH-lee-uhs may-roh), the dying Roman poet who, returning to Rome with Augustus Caesar, takes a long look into his own soul and sees his life as hypocrisy. In his devotion to poetry, he has denied love and has thus served death rather than life. He insists that his Aeneid, because it lacks this perception, should be destroyed, but he finally agrees to preserve the poem at Augustus’ bidding. Knowing, at the last, the salvation that is self-knowledge, the poet dies.

Plotia Hieria (PLOH-shee-uh hih-OO-ree-uh), a woman whose love Virgil had renounced long ago. She appears to the dying poet in the visionary world of his hallucinations and beckons him on to the renunciation of poetry for love.

Augustus Caesar (oh-GUHS-tuhs SEE-zur), emperor of Rome, whose glory is revealed to the dying Virgil as a hollow majesty. The emperor persuades the poet not to destroy the Aeneid, because the poem’s true owner is the Roman people.

Lysanias (lih-SA-nee-uhs), a young boy who attends the dying Virgil, sometimes in reality, sometimes in the poet’s hallucinations.

Bibliography:

Dowden, Stephen D., ed. Hermann Broch: Literature, Philosophy, Politics (The Yale Broch Symposium 1986). Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1988. Includes articles by Luciano Zagari (“‘Poetry is Anticipation’: Broch and Virgil”) and Vasily Rudich (“Mythical and Mystical in The Death of Vergil: A Response to Luciano Zagari”), which deal directly with The Death of Virgil, as well as other essays from the 1986 Yale Broch Symposium, which offer insights into the entire corpus of Broch’s work.

Lützeler, Paul Michael. Hermann Broch: A Biography. Translated by Janice Furness. London: Quartet Books, 1987. A thorough and interesting study, which helps to illuminate the circumstances surrounding the creation of The Death of Virgil.

Untermeyer, Jean Starr. “Midwife to a Masterpiece.” In Private Collection. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965. The personal account of the translator of The Death of Virgil, who worked closely with Broch on the translation during his time at Princeton.

Wiegand, Hermann J. “Broch’s Death of Vergil: Program Notes.” PMLA 62 (1947): 525-554. Offers a solid discussion of the novel. Includes a letter from Broch to Wiegand which is historically interesting, though later scholarship shows that Broch’s memory of events leading to the writing of the novel is not always completely reliable.

Ziolkowski, Theodore. Virgil and the Moderns. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993. Particularly valuable for its discussion of Broch’s use of Virgil in relation to other twentieth century writers.