Memory & The Past Flashcards
Andromache married to Helenus
Andromache identified still as a Trojan woman even after Hector’s death despite coming from Thebes
In marrying Helenus - returns to best version of herself (married to a sone of Priam / a trojan wife) and yet it is still only an imitation of what she was
Memory as self destructive in Parva Troia
In attempting to recreate the past they pervert and degrade it’s memory - Hector’s tomb is empty, the ‘false simous’ is a spring
Andromache’s absorption into the past
Andromache initially believes Aeneas to be a ghost - he too is a double or stand in (entire life is populated by doubles) - though he isn’t Hector he occupies the same space as she believes him to be dead
Andromache projects the image of her own son on Ascanius just as she projects Hector onto Aeneas and Helenus - see’s what she needs to see
How does Parva Troia comment on the past in its broadest sense?
It is a physical manifestation of the past but by its nature, a testament to the necessity of forgetting
A ghost town populated by shades of the past
The people do not inhabit parva troia, they see an effigy of Troy itself
The danger of the seductively familiar
a testament to the degenerative properties of reproduction an necessity of forgetting - however painful
Parva Troia as a comment on Augustus’ politics
Augustus consolidates his power by appealing to the past -> through Parva Troia Virgil shows this to be a weak foundation
Restablishing family values,
ostensibly putting power back in the hands of the senate (superficial) - tracing his family back to Aeneas
Aeneas the storyteller
Interplay of past and present tenses within his retelling indicate the moments where he feels most involved (trauma response?)
Narrative interjections both affirm his sincerity and reduce it
Regular dramatic irony demonstrating the benefit of hindsight
Virgil and Memory in the proem
‘muse, let the memories spill through me’ -
the gates of sleep and memory
- ivory gates that send false dreams back to the upper world (two possible interpretations)
- if aeneas is an Augustan-esque figure -> he is a false hope being sent to the Roman people
- the information itself is interpretted as false and thus Aeneas is unable to remember it, more of an anxiety response than a true vision and thus explaining why he doesn;t remember
The Underworld and Memory
Travelling to the underworld is a reconnection with the past
Worldwide network of the past - the desire of all heroes to visit the underworld is emblematic of a desire for what is lost and what is to come
Marcellus and memory
undercutting the glorification of Rome in the procession of heroes with the pathos of greatness and possibility for rome never coming to fruition
Pathos of Marcellus speaks to the feelings of loss inspied by his thwarted succession
Memory and Desire
Aeneas’ descendents are a physical representation of both sexual desires and his amor for the future
Aeneas’ desire to reconnect with his farther drives him to the underworld and to the parade of heroes
Gratified desire is touched by emptiness of loss (recognition of duplicious nature of a fiction seeking to reconcile personal desire with dynastic destiny?) - Aeneas doens’t really want this but it is required of him
Memory in Book 12
Aeneas ultimately comforts Ascanius with the past rather than the future - imploring him to be as brave as Hector
Irony of Aeneas’ consistent references to Hector since he becomes the figure of Achilles
Memory and inheritance (book 3)
Helenus utilises language of inheritence to describe his marriage to Andromache (‘cessisse’ - allotted to) -> she is passed directly from Hector to him (Trojan to Trojan) despite Pyrheus being her husband in the middle because she always identifies as Trojan
also inherits a heroic responsibility from Hector and thus reconstructs the streets he walked
Memory and Time
As with Circe’s island in the Odyssey, there is a sense that Parva Troia exists outside of space and time - Andromache’s repetitive visiting to the empty tomb of Hector creates a time loop
Degraded memory of Troy
Parva Troia - ghost town inhabited by double but missing the rich history and sense of being lived in
Settlement in Crete - destroyed by disease (physically degrading the body)
Thrace - degraded by the manner of Polydorus’ death and memory of troy is degraded by extension because of how quickly Troy’s allies turned against her
‘devastation of stagnation’
