Which critic states that Books 2-8 read almost like a flashback over the ten years of the war?

• A. Gerry Nusbaum - Structure of the Aeneid
• B. Denis Feeney - Plot
• C. Harrison - Battle scenes
• D. Gransden - Book 4

Answer: (A)

This question gauges how narrators and structure shape how we read the epic. The point is that Books 2–8 are often seen not as a single, continuous present-day action, but as a series of retrospective accounts that recount the ten-year Trojan War.

Gerry Nusbaum, in Structure of the Aeneid, argues precisely this kind of framing. He treats these middle books as a sequence of memory-driven passages where the story is told, often by Aeneas, in the form of flashbacks or digressions. The war’s events are poured into these recall passages, so the reader encounters the long span of conflict through remembered episodes rather than through a straightforward, linear present-day narration. That explains why the books feel like a flashback spanning a decade of warfare.

Other critics focus on different angles—plot mechanics, battlefield depiction, or a single book's emphasis—without making the same structural claim about a sustained flashback across multiple books. So Nusbaum’s structural reading best fits the idea described in the question.