A recent Hungarian novel by Imre Bartok (2020) Majmom, Vergilius [My Monkey, Virgil] constructs its text along a double system of allusions. On the one hand, it uses as an evident point of reference to Hermann Broch’s famous novel Tod des Vergils and through this novel, of course, Vergil’s Aeneid, too, and, on the other hand, narratives of modern migration. Th e progress of the novel is constituted by simultaneous performances of these voices. This paper intends to show how this double characteristic of the novel’s language becomes a thought-provoking way to recast the reception of the Aeneid in Hungary.

A recent Hungarian novel by Imre Bartok (2020) Majmom, Vergilius [My Monkey, Virgil] constructs its text along a double system of allusions. On the one hand, it uses as an evident point of reference to Hermann Broch’s famous novel Tod des Vergils and through this novel, of course, Vergil’s Aeneid, too, and, on the other hand, narratives of modern migration. Th e progress of the novel is constituted by simultaneous performances of these voices. This paper intends to show how this double characteristic of the novel’s language becomes a thought-provoking way to recast the reception of the Aeneid in Hungary.