Framing The Aeneid

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Framing The Aeneid

• HUM 2051 Civilization I
• Fall 2014
• Dr. Perdigao
• October 27, 2014

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New Love

• Venus and Juno as promoting affairwhy?
• Dido Had I not set my face against remarriage /
  After my first love died and failed me, left me /
  Barren and bereavedand sick to death / At the
  mere thought of torch and bridal bed / I could
  perhaps give way in this one case / To frailty
  (975, L22-26)
• Effects on Carthage Now, Towers, half-built,
  rose / No farther (977, L121).
• New allegory of the cave
• Role of Rumortwo forms
• After King Iarbas pleas to Jupiter, Jupiter sends
  Mercury to visit Aeneas because He was to be the
  ruler of Italy (981, L312). Here he had been
  Laying foundations for new towers and homes
  (982, L354).
• Role of Lavinia introduced

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Woman Scorned

• Dear Dido speech 984-985 Didos response
  985-986
• Didos role in long line of female characters
  preceding her?
• Symbol from The Odyssey returns, with new
  meaningfinal peace based on this test, new
  context for Dido
• Pyre
• Mercurys advice Womans a thing / Forever
  fitful and forever changing (991, L791-792).
• Didos wish for Aeneas, outcomes to story
• Elaborate death speech, end (994) patterns of 3s

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Contexts

• Descent into the underworldvital myth important
  from The Odyssey onward. Descent as death,
  virtual death, gaining energy and coming back to
  the task at hand
• Punic Wars between Carthage and Romeforecast in
  poempoem makes Rome feel justified
• Past, Present, Futuretableau of Aeneas with
  father, son
• Didoas both Penelope and Clytaemnestra
• Greekssense of character as being Roman as
  becoming, sense of self as learning, grows,
  developslike the bildungsroman
• Empire itself has to becometakes 500 years

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Descending

• Sibyl of Cumae as guide, her directive in
  relation to Circes guidance
• Call to muse begins Book VIcast in new role?
• Styx, Lethe, Charon (his fear/distrust of Aeneas)
• Palinurusas new Elpenor? Sibyls solution
• Minos, Rhadamanthus (map for Dante)
• Golden bough
• The Fields of Mourning, Blessed Groves
• Didos rolefor pity (she as tragedy)
• Helens story, told by Deïphobus (Menelaus,
  Ulysses) Enjoy a better destiny (1003, L372)
• Blessed GrovesTrojan heroes, Anchises
• Reincarnation?
• Entire prophecy retold by father Caesar
  Augustus, son of the deified, / Who shall bring
  once again an Age of Gold / To Latium (1010,
  L702-704).
• Elegy to Marcellus (1013)

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Aeneas in History

• Politicsmonarchy republic empire
• Caesarback to monarchy Octavian Augustus (most
  revered one) Pax Romana (Roman peace)new order.
  Virgils day is celebrating that rule.
• Aeneass shieldrearmoredbut Rome prophesized
  hindsight because Virgil knows what is happening
• Greek versus Roman sensibility
• Aeneass son kept out of battle, aside, as if
  King
• Aeneas is only beginning for Virgil, prepares for
  Augustus, not replacement

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Rearmoring

• Book VIIIAeneas shield, made by Vulcan
  (Hephaestus), guardian of fire
• And finally the fabric of the shield / Beyond
  description . . . There the Lord of Fire, /
  Knowing the prophets, knowing the age to come, /
  Had wrought the future story of Italy, / The
  triumphs of the Romans. (1015, L24-30)
• Ekphrasis
• Knowing nothing of the events themselves, / He
  felt joy in their pictures (1018, L168-169).
• Transitions
• Pallas, killed by Turnus (corollary in The
  Iliad?)
• Aeneas kills Etruscan Mezentius, then Turnus in
  single combat
• Juno intervenes, has Turnuss sister Juturna
  (river nymph) intervene, Aeneas wounded Juturna
  gives Turnus new sword when finally facing Aeneas

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http//www.reading.ac.uk/SerDepts/vl/classicsexhib
ition/shieldofaeneas.html
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To Rage

• Book XIIThe Death of Turnus
• Jupiter asks Juno to put down this fit of rage
  (1020, L61) Jupiter concedes, agrees to make
  them Latin, one in speech (L68)
• At end, turns to universal Just as in dreams
  when the night-swoon of sleep / Weighs in our
  eyes, it seems we try in vain / To keep on
  running, try with all our might, / But in the
  midst of effort faint and fail / Our tongue is
  powerless, familiar strength / Will not hold up
  our body, not a sound / Or word will come just
  so with Turnus now. (1022, L 164-170)
• Turnus asks for mercy, evoking image of Anchises,
  asks for his body to be returned to his kin
• Moment by moment now / What Turnus said began to
  bring him round / From indecision (1023,
  L211-212) until he sees the swordbelt
• Aeneas raged at the relic of his anguish / Worn
  by this man as trophy (1023, L220-221)