Hercules, Aeneas, Augustus

In book 8, look for the allusions to future ROME and to Homer.

Further, look to see how Virgil is comparing or linking Hercules, Aeneas and Augustus together.

DIDO

Dido, a tragic figure, talks to Americans the most because she embodies individuality and individual decision, but at the cost of country. Her affair with Aeneas upsets countries around her, whose kings or leaders have been suitors for her hand, and have been denied due to her allegiance to Carthage. While in love with Aeneas, her affair threatens her city. We may look at her suicide two-fold:

a) She killed herself due to love and Aeneas’ abandoning her
b) She killed herself to protect Carthage

Or both. The question remains whether she would have acted on her love for Aeneas if Venus had not interfered? If yes, and there is proof in the text, she is indeed a great tragic hero; if no than she is another tragic pawn of the gods.
Dido, a dramatic foil for Aeneas, is a key to understanding how Virgil felt about Aeneid. Did he really believe in it? Aeneas places duty to nation above all morals. The Aeneid is a political book and Virgil questioned the message. On a side note, Americans have witnessed two World Wars when nations have asked individuals to forget their individuality and place nation above self. Roman was conflicted with duty and Aeneas is conflicted with duty. Aeneas suffers just as anyone who gives up their individuality. Virgil’s placement of Dido in the underworld and how she is described- a misty figure, a new moon through banks of clouds; and when she leaves Aeneas she goes back to the endless woods where her husband meets her love with love- confirms his loyalty towards her. Dido is left happy. Aeneas, even when the book ends, is not. Duty and sacrifice towards one’s nation? Did Virgil believe in these things? How could he have possibly asked for the book to be burned?


Christopher Marlowe's DIDO

Books 7-12

Go here to take a quiz. Record the number you get right on your blog.


The 2nd half of the Aeneid is about war and reflects the Iliad. The major characters, outside of the Trojans, include Turnus and Lavinia. Turnus is the male counterpart of DIDO. Lavinia is a Helen-type figure. She starts the war (well, Juno really starts it).

Virgil's Underworld

Here is an interesting website on Virgil's hell.

In this book how do you read DIDO? What's the tone associated with her description?
How do you interpret the different types of dead? The unburied, the suicides, those who committed crimes, the Titans, and the blessed? How do you interpret the idea of reincarnation? What ideas does it reinforce.

Go here to hear Virgi's latin original.

Homework for the Feb. 25-Mar. 1

Read Aeneid books 4-5. Post a blog entry on books 3-5. Discuss the importance of each book in scope of the book as a whole. What ideas does the book introduce or reinforce. What particular motifs, symbols, themes does each book reflect. Avoid mere summary.

Good luck!

Search For A New Troy

Aeneid Book III

List of places visited by Aeneas:

1) Thrace (after the destruction of Troy)
Here Aeneas hears the bleeding bush, Polydorus.
2) Delos - voice (Apollo) tells him to seek the birthplace of his mothers
3) Crete - found Pergamum and then a plague begins
4) Strohades - Harpies and a curse of starvation
5) Actium - makes offerings to Apollo
6) Buthrotrum - city of Helenus, son of Priam.
7) Etna - Sicily (Slylla and Charybdis - sea monters) lands of the Cyclops.
8) Sicily (the other side)- Aeneas' father buried.
9) Carthage


You can click on the title for another link or go here

POETS POETS POETS

Photo 1: Kent Fielding, Allen Ginsberg, Ron Whitehead

Photo 2: Ron Whitehead, Seamus Heaney, Kent Fielding