Which critic argues that Virgil narrates a personal struggle for survival and success that readers can empathize with?

• A. G.E. Duckworth - Structure of the Aeneid
• B. Emma Buckley - Narration of the Aeneid
• C. Denis Feeney - Plot
• D. Harrison - Battle scenes

Answer: (B)

The idea being tested is how the way Virgil tells the story invites readers to feel the poet’s own vulnerability and drive to survive and succeed. Emma Buckley focuses on the narration of the Aeneid, arguing that the poem isn’t just an account of gods and heroes but a narrative stance through which Virgil channels his personal concerns as a poet—his need to secure a place for his art, his tensions about exile and fame, and his hopes for Rome’s future. This narrative perspective makes the poet’s struggle feel intimate and legible to readers, so they can identify with the effort to persevere against odds and to achieve something lasting. The reader is drawn into the narrator’s frame of mind—the ambitions, fears, and persistence—so the epic becomes not only a story about Aeneas but also about the poet’s own survival and achievement.

The other critics tend to focus more on formal or topical aspects: the overall structure of the poem, the sequence of events, or the depiction of battle scenes, rather than on how narration itself frames a personal, empathic struggle. That’s why Buckley’s emphasis on narration best explains why readers might connect with Virgil’s perceived personal stakes.