![]() It had been a long time since I read Virgil, but the deliberateness of the reference seemed too important to understand only vaguely. ![]() In the novel, however, Arcadians are self-conscious of the allusion, explaining that the commune takes as its motto the Latin Et in Arcadia ego. Groff has a history of utilizing classical allusions in her work, with both Fates and Furies and Florida making references to texts as varied as classical Greek drama, mythology, Shakespeare, Middlemarch, and William Blake. The commune’s name, Arcadia, is an allusion to classical poetry and the Arcadia of ancient Greece. Arcadia, published in 2011, is Groff’s first novel and is set at a commune in Upstate New York. I discovered Lauren Groff’s fiction after reading an interview in the New Yorker about her short story “Flower Hunters.” The story, like many in her recent collection, is about motherhood, loneliness, and friendship. Suddenly, I could understand the impulse to hunker down and surround my children with people who seemed separate from everything I feared was going wrong with the world. I had a daughter and was pregnant with my son when the US media began heavily reporting on refugees dying while attempting to cross the Mediterranean, when hurricanes raged across the Gulf, and when my outlook on American policy became nihilistic. ![]() ![]() After having children, the always-baffling allure of a commune began to make a bit more sense. ![]()
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