"The articles and notes included in this volume were published between 1979 and 1998. In their present format these studies take on a diachronic aspect additional to the synchronic status that they had in their original context.

Dealing with the intricate ways in which Virgil, and in the introductory chapter his predecessor Catullus, manipulated and appropriated their inherited Greek and Roman literary tradition, this book presents a profile, through detailed studies, of the mechanics of one of the most dynamic periods in the literary history of any culture.".

"There is throughout a working assumption that intertextual connections can be established, and further that functions and purposes, even intended ones, may be inferred from those connections. The hermeneutic stance, if there is a single one, is that the presence of the model's intertext, when triggered by reader recognition in the (Catullan or) Virgilian text, has a powerful ability to create meaning.".

"This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Greek and Roman poetry but should also be of value to students of medieval, Renaissance, and early modern vernacular literatures, most of whose poets saw themselves closely connected to Virgil, and many of whom entered into similar relationships with Virgilian and other Latin texts."--BOOK JACKET.