Justin A. Haynes, The Medieval Classic: Twelfth Century Latin Epic and the Virgilian Commentary Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021, pp. 224.

Poetic legacy is one of the many concerns of Justin A. Haynes (Georgetown University) in this wide-ranging yet still focused analysis of Virgilian reception in the Middle Ages. The epic successors of Virgil and the links between antique and early modern epic are addressed, examining as well and in particular verbal echoes of the Aeneid in the mostly twelfth-century Alexandreis, Architrenius, Ylias and Anticlaudianus (all 1176–1190). In the broader context of interpreting the influence of the Aeneid, presumably the classical epic model in particular for Walter of Châtillon’s Alexandreis and the Ylias by Joseph of Exeter was Lucan’s Pharsalia. Similarly, the prosimetric De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii along with Juvenal’s satires offered classical models for Alan of Lille’s Anticlaudianus and the Architrenius of John of Hauville.