Which scholar discusses the Aeneid as a national poem exploring Roman character and ideals?

• A. Philip Hardie
• B. R. D. Williams
• C. Ellen O'Gorman
• D. Denis Feeney

Answer: (B)

The idea being tested is how readers frame the Aeneid as a national poem that communicates Roman character and ideals. R. D. Williams is the most fitting answer because his work treats the Aeneid as a national epic that embeds Rome’s origin, destiny, and moral order within Virgil’s narrative. He shows how Aeneas’s duties, the founding of Rome, and the poem’s political resonances work together to shape a sense of Roman identity and the values Romans are meant to uphold—pietas, duty to the state, and communal purpose. This reading presents the Aeneid not just as great literature, but as a vehicle for articulating what it means to be Roman.

Other scholars engage Virgil from important angles—for example, Hardie often emphasizes empire, memory, and cultural context; Feeney concentrates on imperial ideology and politics in classical poetry; O’Gorman tends to focus on reception and related topics. While valuable, their approaches do not center the Aeneid as the explicit national poem about Roman character and ideals in the same direct way Williams does.