The Aeneid

1
The Aeneid

• Background, Themes, Motifs, etc

2
P. Vergilius Maro (Vergil)

• ?? 15 Oct 70 B.C. 20 Sep 19 B.C.
• ?? born 70 B.C. in Mantua, northern Italy
• ?? Traditionally spelled Virgil in English
• ?? perhaps from virga (magicians wand) or virgo
  (maiden)
• ?? Education
• ?? studied Hellenistic poetry, Epicurean
  philosophy
• ?? suffering an illnessperhaps
  tuberculosisVergil gave up the law after one
  case to devote himself to literature and
  philosophy

3
Early Works the Eclogues

• 10 rural or pastoral poems
• ?? Eclogue means selection
• ?? dactylic hexameter in form but lyric in nature
• ?? Pastoral poetrybegan with Theocritus of
  Alexandria
• ?? Arcadian setting a spiritual landscape
• ?? Vergil injects the Italian countryside,
  including effects of triumviral dispossession,
  into his Arcadia
• ?? His own family estates had been confiscated
• ?? Millennialism of the Fourth Eclogue a child
  and the coming golden age

4
Maecenas Patronage

• After 37 B.C., Vergil was patronized by Augustus
  friend Maecenas
• ?? After Actium in 31 B.C., Vergil began a
  didactic poem called the Georgics
• ?? 4 books of farmer poems
• ?? a technical and philosophical treatise on
  farming interspersed with poetic whims
• ?? highlights Roman values, particularly the work
  ethic
• ?? Vergil was later closely associated with
  Augustus directly

5
Writing an Epic

• Vergil, the Roman Homer
• ?? divided in twoan Odyssey section (books 1-6)
  and an Iliad section (books 7-12)
• ?? A literary epic
• ?? A working definition of a classical epic, as
  established by Homer and as emulated by later
  Greeks and Romans, is as follows
• ?? An epic is a long work of heroic poetry that
  succeeded in becoming traditional, that helped to
  establish a sense of national identity, and
  reinforced accepted values.
• ?? retains epic conventions, but painstakingly
  composed and written, sometimes only a line or
  two a day!
• ?? dactylic hexameter, epithet, formulas,
  redundancies, Invocation, in medias res, aristea,
  catalogues, epic simile, exaggerations

6
Themes fundamental and often universal ideas
explored in a literary work

• Fate
• Does it exist?
• Can you fight it?
• Juno, Aeneas, Dido, Turnus, etc.
• The Sufferings of Wanderers
• Hidden destruction
• Father and son relationship

7
More Themes

• Chaos vs. Order
• Emotion vs. Logic
• Piety(Pietas) vs. Impiety
• War vs. Peace

8
Motifsrecurring structures, contrasts, and
literary devices that can help to develop and
inform the texts major themes

• Prophecies and predictions
• Founding a new city
• Vengeance

9
Symbolsobjects, characters, figures, and colors
used to represent abstract ideas or concepts

• Flames/Fire
• Golden Bough
• The Gates of War
• Lares Penates
• Weather
• Caves

10
The Iliad

• Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of
  Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the
  Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying
  down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a
  prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the
  counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which
  the son of Atreus, king of men, and great
  Achilles, first fell out with one another.

11
The Odyssey

• Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who
  travelled far and wide after he had sacked the
  famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit,
  and many were the nations with whose manners and
  customs he was acquainted moreover he suffered
  much by sea while trying to save his own life and
  bring his men safely home but do what he might
  he could not save his men, for they perished
  through their own sheer folly in eating the
  cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion so the god
  prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me,
  too, about all these things, O daughter of Jove,
  from whatsoever source you may know them.

12
The Aeneid

• Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate,
  And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate, Expell'd
  and exil'd, left the Trojan shore. Long labors,
  both by sea and land, he bore, And in the
  doubtful war, before he won The Latian realm,
  and built the destin'd town His banish'd gods
  restor'd to rites divine, And settled sure
  succession in his line, From whence the race of
  Alban fathers come, And the long glories of
  majestic Rome. O Muse! the causes and the crimes
  relate What goddess was provok'd, and whence
  her hate For what offense the Queen of Heav'n
  began To persecute so brave, so just a man
  Involv'd his anxious life in endless cares,
  Expos'd to wants, and hurried into wars! Can
  heav'nly minds such high resentment show, Or
  exercise their spite in human woe?