Aeneid scholars Flashcards
Harrison (European school view)
This positive presentation of the Aeneid as a classic vindication of the European world order, happily consonant with Roman imperialism and the achievements and political settlement of Augustus
Tarrant (Virgil - post 1950s)
a private lack of faith in the positive vision of Rome and its future
Tarrant (Virgil / praise of Augustus)
Either the praise is genuine, and damaging to the credit of the poet or it is feigned to conceal Virgil’s true attitude of disgust or opposition
Williams (Augustus / Aeneas)
Virgil is trying to depict a character upon whom Romans of his day could model themselves
Boyle (Augustus / Aeneas)
Aeneas for example both is and is not Augustus
Hardie (Aeneas - quality of character)
the colourless quality of Aeneas’ character is largely the result of the roles forced on him by the plot of the Aeneid
Hardie (Dido as a wife / woman)
In Tyre, Dido had found fulfilment in the traditional role of ancient women, subordinate to power of her husband, Sychaeus.
Camps (Aeneas - emotions)
Aeneas’ sensibility appears at every parting and loss, and in which we meet him first in a moment of terror and leave him at the end in an outburst of anger.
Williams (Virgil and Dido)
he saw Dido’s rejection not from Rome’s point of view but from Dido’s
Camps (Dido and the gods)
What happens to Dido is thus an accidental result of the scheming and counter-scheming among the gods (…)
Camps (Dido’s death / Cleopatra)
The story of Dido’s dangerous love must inevitably have evoked for the Roman reader the memory of Cleopatra
Quinn (Augustus)
Augustus commissioned the Aeneid to be an epic poem with himself as the hero
Quinn (Dido)
It is impossible to escape a feeling that Dido somehow believes, or half believes, that death means restoration
Williams (Aeneas as a human - not another Achilles)
It is not that Virgil has tried to create another Achilles and failed to do so; it is that he has tried to create an entirely different kind of hero
Williams (Aeneas and sympathy)
Under the pressure of his own human nature he sometimes alienates, or partially alienates, our sympathy
Williams (Aeneas - mortal)
Aeneas is very much an ordinary mortal
Boyle (Aeneas’ furor)
[Aeneas is] a prime embodiment of the values and behaviour of the heroic world of bloodlust, violence, honour and the senseless pursuit of fame.
Boyle (Aeneas’ behaviour - another Achilles)
Virgil insinuates a telling analogy with Achilles in order that the Trojan hero may be seen as a reincarnation of the very figure whose cruelty and violence he had groaned in book 1
Morwood (Virgil - optimism and pessimism)
The tension between optimism and pessimism in Vigil’s work is an apt reflection of the times in which it was first written
Williams (Augustus and Virgil - political ideas)
The emperor and the poet has the same ideas (…) the governmental policy of Augustus in moral social and religious ideas, not because they were Augustus’ ideas but because they were Virgil’s
Tarrant (Virgil Context)
Virgil engages with contemporary political reality in a serious and sustained way
Tarrant (Virgil and Augustus)
The poem’s the ironic indecision (…) can be read as a metaphor for the political situation (…) in which it was obvious that Octavian was now the most powerful figure in the state but not yet clear how he would choose to exercise that power.
Tarrant (Virgil’s views)
The entire poem can be read as a troubled reflection on its historical context.
Camps (Aeneid and the Homeric epics)
The Aeneid is a poem wholly different (…) from the Homeric poems. Yet it recalls them on every page
Morwood (Structure)
Virgil clearly felt that in some important way the second Iliadic half of his poem was greater than the first
Tingay and Badcock (Aeneas as the potential of Rome -Optimist school)
Through it’s description of the hardships, setbacks and final triumph of the good man, Aeneas, Virgil’s poem underlines the struggle and achievement of Rome itself and the great promise of her empire
Morwood (Virgil and politics - Harvard school)
Virgil does not seem reluctant to raise difficult, even potentially dangerous, political issues in his poetry
Jenkyns (Aeneid - not a praise poem)
He [Virgil] did not have to write a praise poem about Augustus, because if Augustus wanted a poem about his glorious deeds, he never got it.
Morgan (imitating Homer)
In the cultural context that he [Virgil] occupies, imitating Homer is about the most exciting thing that a poet can do
Morgan (Homer’s achievements and Virgil)
‘In the first three words, Vigil is summarising the entire achievement of Homer and saying, I sing it’
‘In those first 3 words is contained Virgil’s answer to the weight of expectation’
(Arma vinque camo = I sing of arms and the man:
Arma - the Iliad, vinum - Odysseus)
Marshal (Influence of Roman tradition on Virgil)
‘We see in his [Ennius’] work a number of characterisations that you will recognise from reading Virgil’s work’
- ‘self consciousness of his place within tradition’
- ‘acknowledgement of his debt to his predecessors’
Marshal (national achievement)
‘We see the celebration of national achievement but all the time with such subtlety and riotousness as to put away any strait forward reading of this text as a work of Roman propaganda’
(On links between Enneas’ works and the Aeneid)
Sowerby (women)
it is a most powerful feminine protest against piety and the grand patriarchal design
Williams (Aeneas and suffering)
Having seen the glorious vision of the future, he will continue through whatever additional suffering is involved
West (Aeneas and pietas)
Apart from his lapse in book four, Aeneas is [pietas’] embodiment
Powers (Aeneas’ great characteristic)
This virtue [pietas] will always be Aeneas’ great characteristic
Lyne (Aeneas’ relationships)
it is Aeneas’ relationships that Virgil appears to neglect
Gransden (juno)
The stirring up of war in Latinum, contrary not only to the will of jupiter but to that of king latinus, is Juno’s masterpiece
Williams (Aeneas’ aim - satisfaction)
Aeneas is not aiming to achieve personal satisfaction
Jenkyns (Aeneid as a praise poem)
The Aeneid praises Augustus for two things; the conquests of distant lands and the restoration of order. Suggests not that Virgil didn’t believe in Augustus, but that he did
Sowerby (virgils fatalistic ideas)
The Aeneid is a most fatalistic poem and Virgil’s melancholy fatalism
underlies the narrative at every turn.
