Virgil and Ovid were both incredibly influential upon later poetry and culture, and in this lecture we look at some of the texts which look back to their epics in the late antique period through to the Renaissance, in particular Claudian's Rape of Proserpina and Shakespeare's poetry and drama, as well as other creative arts. By looking at the reception of Roman epic we gain some perspective on these ancient works and can appreciate how they were read and interpreted by their European cultural inheritors. Copyright 2014 Rhiannon Evans / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.