Aeneid Scholarship Flashcards
Natalie Haynes on Venus and Aeneas
“in spite of her physical distance from Aeneas… [Venus] is deeply invested in his wellbeing”
Kershaw on Priam’s death
“the sheer savagery of the Greek assault is rammed home in the repulsive slaughter of Priam”
Kershaw on Aeneas’s response to Pallas’s death
“a mixture of mad anger (furor) and pietas”
Kershaw on Turnus
“Turnus seems boy-like in comparison to Aeneas”
Kershaw on the ending
“did furor win in the end, or pietas? The emotional and moral effects of the ending are highly ambiguous”
Meban on friendship
“friendship was always an institution central to Roman cultural life”
Meban on Nisus and Euryalus
“viewing the two Trojans [Nisus and Euryalus] in light of those who suffered and were defeated in the civil war gives voice to such victims”
Sforza on Aeneas
“the hatred of Virgil towards the prime ancestor of the despot of the day is so intense that it is practically impossible to find a passage, where Aeneas appears, that does not in some way indict him with dastardly, criminal, or stupid actions”Sf
Sforza on liberty
“Virgil’s poem is a passionate vindication of Liberty, and the most sublime hymn to spiritual and political Freedom ever sung”
Levi on Augustus
“the grandeur of Augustus was a terrifying presence even to his friends, and Virgil trod as carefully as Horace”
Levi on the shield of Aeneas
“he [Virgil] lied shamelessly about the battle of Actium [in the shield of Aeneas] … in particular in reverses the roles of Augustus and Agrippa”
Boyle on the ending
“Virgil could not have been more clear… it is Virgil’s concern to emphasize that it (the ending) is a victory for the forces of non-reason and the triumph not of pietas but of furor”
Powell on Virgil’s purpose
“Virgil’s myths are purposeful propaganda, aimed at proving that Augustus deserved his place in the world and that Rome’s destiny in history was willed by divine intelligence”
Williams on the Aeneid and unity
“in some ways of course the Aeneid achieves unity; but perhaps it was a sense of failure in his urge to harmonize the discordant, to reconcile the opposites, that caused Virgil on his deathbed to ask Augustus to see that the Aeneid was burned”
Williams on book 6
a crucial book in the development of Aeneas
Jenkyns on Dido and Aeneas’s affair
it was a fit of passion so no one was to blame
Fearn and Laird on the epic’s themes
“though the epic is about war, it is also about human values and human emotions”
Fearn and Laird and the Aeneid’s purpose
“the Aeneid is really an attempt to win hearts and minds for this change of regime”
Fearn and Laird on propaganda
“if you want to write propaganda, you mustn’t let people see that it is propaganda”
Harrison on Virgil and violence
Virgil is not a “pea-shooting pacifist”, he is “someone who appreciates a fine kill”
Harrison on death scenes
they are the literary equivalent of going to watch gladiator shows
Harrison on tough guys
“tough guys don’t talk they do”
Harrison on Dido
Virgil is not condemning Dido , it was the fault of the gods
Hardie on women
There are no powerful or successful women in the Aeneid
Hardie on visits to the underworld
they are typical of epics
Hardie on the parade of heroes
“a male dominated view of history”
Mac Góráin on Aeneas’s virtues
“Aeneas displays virtues that are quintessentially Roman”
Mac Góráin on Aeneas and Augustus’s ideals
“his character is consistent with the ideals which Augustus was keen to promote… religious, social and familial”
Mac Góráin on Aeneas’s duties
“Aeneas… scrupulously fulfils his duties to the gods, to his family, and to his fatherland”
Bragg on Ascanius, Aeneas and Anchises
“the past, the present, the future of what will be Rome”
Edwards on Aeneas
Aeneas is “often put in a position where he must overcome emotion to pursue duty”
Hall on the Aeneid
people have to say the Aeneid is subversive because we live in a post-colonial society
Griffin on the ideal Virgilian family
grandfather, father, son
Griffin on Aeneas’s heroism
Aeneas is presented as very unwilling to leave, and willing to die. The doom of Troy is depicted as unavoidable. therefore, he does not appear cowardly and is “not less than Homeric in his heroism”
Starr on Augustus
Augustus is the “prince of peace” in the Aeneid
Putnam on ekphrasis
Virgilian ekphrasis has ambiguous potential
Braund on Aeneas and Augustus
Aeneas and Augustus “map onto one another”
Braund on books 6-8
Roman middle
Braund on book 5
it shows Aeneas growing as a leader
Braund on Aeneas
he goes from “Homeric leader” to “Proto-Roman”
Gale on Turnus
Turnus can be viewed as an “innocent victim of the gods” or as an enemy of order and peace”. there are ambiguities surrounding Turnus’s character
Merriam on Ascanius (3)
“agent of chaos”
“Vergil uses Ascanius as a type of barometer in the epic, warning readers of storms to come”
“Ascanius’s presence promises that there will be future, but the happiness and security that the Trojan refugees dream of can be compromised by human folly, childish enthusiasm and heedless selfishness”
Hinds on the Aeneid
“all male, all war, all the time”
Duckworth on books 1 and 7
they parallel each other- arrival in a new place
Duckworth on aeneas
it is not that aeneas is devoid of strong feeling, it is that he subordinates this feeling to Fate and the will of the gods
Cowan on furor
“frenzy or furor is the most pervasive and destructive force in the Aeneid”
Cowan on the Aeneid
the Aeneid is a game of two halves”
Cowan on Aeneas and Augustus
Aeneas is a “model for the emperor Augustus, a template of what a good Roman is expected to be”
Cowan on Aeneas and furor
“we are left to wonder whether the man who cannot control his own frenzy will be able to soothe it in the troubled breasts of others”
Cowan on Virgil and Homer (2)
“with the Aeneid, we must always look first to Homer”
“with Virgil and Homer, it is the differences that are telling”
Beard on Aeneas
Aeneas is a “decidedly unstraightforward hero”
Edwards on Turnus
“[Turnus] plays Hector to Aeneas’s Achilles”
Higgins on Aeneas
“I have never managed to square “pious Aeneas” - the dutiful, gods-fearing prince - with the rampaging berserker who bruies his sword in his enemy’s breast in anger, even when Turnus is downed, defeated and begging for mercy”
Lyne on Juturna
Juno’s “sidekick”
Marshall on Aeneas/fate
Aeneas is an “agent of fate, a self-denying public servant”
Southon on Virgil’s addition of Marcellus to the parade
“a legitimately wild piece of sucking up”
Morgan on the gods as poetic figures
they make the poem exciting, and add a literary effect. Mercury, for example, is used to engage and amuse the readers. Alecto is a “charismatic, evil figure”
Morgan on the gods as influential figures
Alecto provides the material for the second half of the poem
The gods are very influential figures, they
Morgan on Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas during their love affair, are just “puppets of higher forces”
Morgan on Priam’s death
it is evocative of the death of Pompey the great
Morgan on the fall of Troy
it is assimilated to the recent civil wars
Morgan on Aeneas and Achilles (2)
Aeneas is described in a way that is “reminiscent of Achilles”
“Achilles is a worrying figure to associate with”
Morgan on Aeneas’s human sacrifice
It is “terrifying for a Roman audience to see their founding father commit human sacrifice” it was the “ultimate negation of civilisation”
Morgan on Turnus
“we understand why it is [Turnus] commands the authority of his troops”
Morgan on Pallas
“exemplary young man” with the “potential to be as great as Aeneas”
Morgan on Lausus, Aeneas and Mezentius
“Aeneas and Mezentius are brought back to normality by the figure of Lausus” he works to “humanise” them
Morgan on young men
“being a young man is not a good condition in the Aeneid”
Mattes on the killing of Turnus
“the violent killing of Turnus, in the last sentence of the poem, leaves the reader questioning the glory of Roman history”
Mattes on the Aeneid’s purpose
“the Aeneid is really anti-Augustan while feigning to be pro-Augustan”
Mattes on the inclusion of Daedalus and Icarus
“the grief of Daedalus at the fall of Icarus into the sea, which he was unable to express, may be analogous to Virgil’s grief at the fall of the Roman Republic”
Mattes on the Trojan horse
“I propose that the inclusion of this event, in such detail, was intended to suggest to the reader that his epic was pro-Augustan, while really being poisonous to him”
Mattes on the ambiguity of the Aeneid
“the Aeneid was deliberately written to be ambiguous, even contradictory, and impossible to interpret in a straightforward way”
Mattes on the poem as a whole
“the poem now becomes an affirmation of the value of an individual voice of reason and virtue in a world of violence and dishonesty”
Vandiver on Camilla
exceptional woman- rejects women’s primary roles, raised by father, acts like a man
Vandiver on Juturna
exceptional woman- mortal to immortal, more powerful than her brother, was raped by Jupiter but Juno likes her
Vandiver on Camilla and Juturna
they both represent skewed versions of marriage and sexuality, they’ll both never marry
“these inversions of marriage stress the impropriety of the marriage Turnus seeks with Lavinia”
Vandiver on Pallas’s sword belt
“the symbolic connection between ruined marriages and Turnus’s doom is reiterated by the wearing of Pallas’ sword belt, with its depiction of the daughters of Danaus”
Kershaw on Dido
“she is beautiful, happy, brave, dynamic and kind”
Kershaw on the comparison between the ancient age and contemporary Rome
“the historical perspective is distorted: we are in two different periods at once”
West on divine motivation
“divine machinery provides double motivation”
feldman on ascanius
provides humourous relief
Feldman on Aeneas leaving dido
He does it for ascanius and his devotion to him
Putnam on the Aeneid
The Aeneid is a poem of rage and loss
Morgan on women
Women have license to perform in the poem as long as they behave like men
