In this volume of papers 19 authors demonstrate on the basis of selected examples how Virgil s works, and above all his Aeneid, have been received by modern authors. The examples span six centuries (from the 15th to the 20th century). They are not limited to the Latin reception, but also present texts from various genres and languages (including Latin, German, English, French, Italian etc.). The volume thus provides an impressive review of the variety of the modern reception of Virgil."

This study contests the widespread view that Seneca's tragedies and Lucan's epic on the civil war express their authors' disappointment at the failure of Stoic doctrine to provide convincing answers to the problems of evil in human behaviour or the inescapable blows of Fate. The works of both writers, parallel in treatment, aim at the representation in literature of the tensions between human free-will and determinism.