Lavinia (novel)
First-person retelling of a minor Aeneid character.
Last updated
Ursula K. Le Guin's 2008 novel Lavinia won a Locus Award and was her final published work.[1][2] The narrative employs a first-person, self-aware voice to tell the story of Lavinia, who appears only briefly in Virgil's Aeneid.[2]
Making and release
In an interview, Le Guin said the first part of her book is a kind of "translation" from epic into novel, following Vergil's story closely.[3] She added that she left out epic machinery such as the gods who intervene in the action.[3] Le Guin noted she added "thick" novelistic description and interpreted things on the domestic and personal level instead of the heroic and mythic level.[3] The novel's second half continues where Vergil ended, with Lavinia remembering her brief but happy marriage to Aeneis and the birth of their only son.[3]
Le Guin has stated that the novel should not be regarded as a historical work.[4] According to Le Guin, the idea that Aeneas of Troy was involved in Rome's foundation is entirely legendary, with much of that legend created by Virgil himself.[4] She characterizes her novel as a prose rendering of the final six books of the Aeneid.[4]
What the cited sources add
The Inkwell Review notes that Lavinia spoke not a single word in Vergil’s epic poem the Aeneid, but her bride price was a war and her marriage helped found Roman civilization.[3] The review states that unlike Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad, Lavinia is not a feminist retelling of Greco-Roman mythology, though Lavinia is strong-willed like Penelope and Dido.[3] Higgins writes that in Virgil, Lavinia is the daughter of Latinus, king of Laurentum in Italy, and Latinus has received a prophecy instructing him that Lavinia must be married to a foreigner.[5] Higgins describes Le Guin's Lavinia as a delightful heroine: pragmatic, sensible, gentle, courageous.[5]
Higgins also notes that Le Guin does not marshal the gods as active characters, instead giving her characters a rough, homely religion that honours the spirits of hearth and hill.[5]
References
- Wikipedia, "Lavinia (novel)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "2009 Award Winners & Nominees", Worlds Without End (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Lavinia (novel)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Higgins, "The princess with flaming hair", Guardian Books, 2009-05-23 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Interview with Le Guin on The Inkwell Review, on her novel Lavinia.. facts only, no text reused. inkwellreview.blogspot.com
- Wikipedia, "Lavinia (novel)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Afterword to Lavinia.; Interview with Le Guin on The Inkwell Review, on her novel Lavinia. (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Higgins, "The princess with flaming hair", Guardian Books, 2009-05-23. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Lavinia (novel) (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
More in Novels by Ursula K. Le Guin
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Lavinia (novel) (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced