Abstract

Rat’s description of Otter’s search for his missing son, Portly, in Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows contains an allusion to Aeneas’ search for his wife, Creusa, in book 2 of Vergil’s Aeneid during the final fall of Troy. This reference economically imports a number of elements more appropriate to epic than pastoral literature. The result is a heightened sense of emotion and concern but, ironically, the reinforcement of the boundaries of the idyllic pastoral world.

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