Nothing in the Aeneid is more evident to each generation of readers than the interaction of time levels throughout the poem’s structure.

Elisabeth Henry argues that the interrelation of these different levels of awareness in the narrative is a major subject of the poem. There are also national or collective memories, embodied in names or institutions, that Virgil links to the people and places of his legendary narrative. Thus, though Aeneas’ story is one man’s story—it is also the history of a people and the enactment of the meaning of that history.

Elisabeth Henry has taught at the University of Manchester and the University of Sheffield