Study Guide to The Aeneid by Virgil

Intelligent Education

• Publisher: Influence Publishers
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781645425250
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Manuali di studio
• Subtopic: Guide di studio

A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for selected works by Virgil, ancient Roman poet. Titles in this study guide include The Aeneid.As a poet of the Augustan period, his poems are regarded as one of the most important poems in Latin literature. Moreover, The Aeneid captures the personal qualities of Romans and what life in Rome looked like. This Bright Notes Study Guide explores the context and history of Virgil's classic work, helping students to thoroughly explore the reasons they have stood the literary test of time. Each Bright Notes Study Guide contains: - Introductions to the Author and the Work
- Character Summaries
- Plot Guides
- Section and Chapter Overviews
- Test Essay and Study Q&AsThe Bright Notes Study Guide series offers an in-depth tour of more than 275 classic works of literature, exploring characters, critical commentary, historical background, plots, and themes. This set of study guides encourages readers to dig deeper in their understanding by including essay questions and answers as well as topics for further research.

INTRODUCTION TO VIRGIL

 

Publius Vergilius Maro was born in a small country village, Andes, near Mantua on October 15, 70 B.C. Tradition says his mother's name was Magia Polla, The daughter of a certain man of property, Magius, for whom Virgil's father worked at one time. From careful study of his poems and from references in early biographers, we learn that he was the son of a middle class farmer, received some education at the nearby city of Cremona, and possibly further education at Milan. He took his "graduate courses" in Rome and Naples, where the usual curriculum included rhetoric, philosophy, science and literature. He spent most of his adult life in Naples, but he incorporates into his poetry the most beautiful scenes from all the regions where he had lived. We have no definite knowledge of the events in his life until the year 42 B.C.

The battle of Philippi took place in October of that year between Julius Caesar's heirs, Antony and Octavius, and Brutus and Cassius (the old-guard faction, responsible for Caesar's assassination in 44 B.C.) To compensate the veterans of their victorious armies, Octavius and Antony confiscated land in the north of Italy. This was the very region where Virgil's father's farm was located. Through the influence of the governor of the territory, Asinius Pollio, Virgil was able to prevail upon Octavius to spare his father's farm. It is to this Pollio that he subsequently dedicated his first mature work, the Bucolics, or as they are more commonly called, the Eclogues (from the Greek word meaning "select poems"). These are short pieces about the joys and sorrows of idealized shepherds. There is evidence that Virgil lived both in Rome and in various country villas while he was composing the Eclogues. These were published around 37 B.C.

The next ten years of his life were occupied in writing his great work on farming, the Georgics. It is probable that they were first published about 30 B.C., and then revised in 26 B.C. (see introduction to Georgics for details). During much of this period the idea of writing a great epic was in the back of Virgil's mind. After the completion of the Georgics, he spent the rest of his life on the Aeneid. It was not yet ready for publication when in 19 B.C. he decided to take a trip to Greece and Asia Minor. He intended to devote three years there to the careful revision of the work. But while he was in Athens, he met Augustus who was returning to Rome to straighten affairs that had become out of hand during his four years absence from the capital. He persuaded Virgil to return with him. At Megara in Greece, Virgil caught a fever, and grew more and more ill during the voyage across the Adriatic Sea. He died on September 21, 19 B.C., shortly after his arrival in the port of Brundisium. He was not quite fifty-one years old.

Much has been written about Virgil's character and temperament. These works are opinions based on what each writer has felt most keenly through his own reading of the poems. The best way to understand Virgil is to read his works over and over again. He was a humble man who respected and admired the men in prominent positions who were his patrons: Pollio, Varus, Gallus, Maecenas, and finally the emperor Augustus himself. He had a burning sense of the importance of the mission of Rome. The beauty and history of his native land moved him deeply. Most important of all, he was filled with those yearnings which impel all great men: the desire for peace, the search after the nature of the divine and for inner contentment, and the longing to express one's beliefs in a form worthy of the greatest of his predecessors.

INTRODUCTION TO THE AENEID

 

The Aeneid is an epic. Webster's dictionary defines epic as follows: "A long narrative poem about the deeds of a traditional or historical hero or heroes of high station, such as the Iliad or Odyssey, with a background of warfare and the supernatural, a dignified style, and certain formal characteristics of structure (beginning in the middle of the story, catalogue passages, invocation of the muse, etc)." It is important to keep these points in mind in reading the Aeneid, but if we expect an exciting fulfillment of the first part of the definition, we shall be disappointed. The actual plot of the poem is weak. In fact, if the gods and goddesses did not interfere all the time, there would barely be any plot at all. Aeneas, the son of the goddess of love, Venus, and a prince of Troy, Anchises, escapes from the sack of Troy with a loyal group of fugitives. Their destination is Italy. They have a few insignificant adventures, mostly in the form of warnings about what to avoid.

They almost reach Italy but the queen of the gods, Juno, intervenes. She is angry that they have made the trip so easily, and sends a storm which drives them to Africa and the city of Carthage. There the hero meets the queen, Dido, makes love to her, and leaves her, because the king of the gods, Jupiter, tells him he must. He has a destiny, to found Rome. Aeneas obeys and sails away. Dido leaps on her burning funeral pyre, and dies.

The hero, after a short stay in Sicily and a trip to the underworld, eventually arrives in Italy. There the natives are friendly until Juno stirs them up. The fortunes of the ensuing war ebb and flow, but finally Aeneas kills the enemy's champion. There the story ends. The tale of the deeds of Aeneas, however, is not the main reason for the poem. Virgil wrote the Aeneid because he was obsessed with the idea of Rome's mission to the world. He wanted to create a work of art to rival the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. He was a complex poet, and took as a skeleton the myth of Aeneas (which had existed in various forms for centuries) to convey the thoughts burning within him.

It is impossible not to compare the Aeneid with Homer's two epics. In such a comparison, however, the Aeneid always seems to suffer. This is because so many people think that Virgil's poem tried to be a combination of Homer's two, and failed. The hero, Aeneas, doesn't seem to be made of flesh and blood, as are Achilles and Hector, the great warriors of the Iliad. When we read Homer, we are right there with the leaders of both sides, Greek and Trojan. There is tremendous excitement. In the Odyssey, we accompany the clever scoundrel, Odysseus, on his adventures which equal the thrill of the Arabian Nights. However insurmountable the obstacle, odysseus always manages to come out on top. Aeneas, on the other hand, has really very few true adventures. He sails, he lands somewhere, and talks to someone who warns him about what will happen next. Except for his affair with Dido and his trip to the underworld, his so-called adventures are quite uneventful.

In Homer, the characters are men; in Virgil they are symbols first, and men only second. This brings us to the important point. The two poets can be compared, as they have been for centuries, and always will be. But if we come to a conclusion which says that the Iliad is full of life and vigor, and the Aeneid is slow and dull, we have totally missed the difference in the aims of the two poets. Homer's main purpose is to tell a story. Virgil's purpose is to show symbolically how Rome achieved her greatness. Both portray human character, but Virgil starts from the symbol and molds his characters to fit the symbol. Aeneas is symbolic both of the progress of Rome in history, and of Augustus' rise to the position of leader of the civilized world. Homer's heroes are examples of certain types of human character, but he did not consciously intend to make them symbols. Aeneas always acts fully aware of time past and time future, but hardly at all concerned with the present. Achilles and Hector, although a sense of tragedy hangs over them, are basically creatures of the present. We could go on enumerating differences. The point is that because Virgil built his poem on a Greek model, using his own original conception of the symbolic aspects of human character and history, he was able to create a work which not only added hitherto unknown depths to the power of the Latin language, but which appeals to us now as it did to the men of the Renaissance, and will to future generations.

We cannot leave the discussion of Virgil's models without a brief mention of two of the earlier Latin poets who wrote epics. Both their works exist only in such small fragments that a thorough comparison is not possible. The elder of these, Naevius, fought in the first war with Carthage (the First Punic War, 264-241 B.C.). When it was over he lived at Rome and wrote the story of the war as an epic poem. Its title was the Punic War. In the introduction he discussed the mythical origins of Rome and Carthage, Aeneas' escape from Troy, the storm at sea, Jupiter's promise to Venus concerning Rome's future greatness, Aeneas' visit to Dido's city, and the settlement of the Trojans in Latium. All of these elements are found in Virgil's poem. The rest of Naevius' work, however, dealt with the historical events of the Punic War itself.

The other early Roman writer of epic who influenced Virgil was Ennius (236-169 B.C.). Born in a small town, he served in the army, and eventually moved to Rome where he wrote poetry and plays. His epic of eighteen books was, like that of Naevius, based on history. It was called the Annals. The first book covered the period from the death of the king of Troy, Priam, to the deification of the founder of Rome, Romulus. Virgil's twelve books cover only part of Ennius' first one. The rest of the Annals was what we would call a history book about Rome. It could hardly be called a unified poem. Unfortunately we possess too little of these poets' works to discuss with any degree of certainty their similarities to Virgil. The great difference between Virgil and his Latin predecessors was that he transcended history by writing of myth, and thus gave his poem a universal application. Greek or Roman, he challenges all his models in the Aeneid.

Virgil probably commenced work on the poem before he completed the Georgics. In the introduction to the third Georgic he says that he is going to write an epic. Indeed, it was the great goal of his life. Perhaps he had composed a rough draft as early as 30 B.C. We have no way of knowing. But the rest of his life was occupied with the Aeneid. In 19 B.C. it was almost finished except for a few half lines and some passages he had not gone over. That year he planned a trip to Greece and Asia Minor where he intended to spend at least three years going over the work. He went as far as Athens where the emperor was staying on the last leg of his journey back to Rome. He persuaded Virgil to return to Italy with him. Before leaving Greece, Virgil fell ill. He lived only long enough to reach the Italian port of Brundisium. His dying wish was to have the poem destroyed because of its poetic imperfections, and inconsistencies in the plot. But Augustus ordered it published after Virgil's two literary executors had gone over it.

The poem consists of twelve books, the longest of which is 952 lines, the shortest, 705. The subjects of the books are as follows:

1. The invocation to the muse, the causes of Juno's anger, the wreck of Aeneas' fleet, and the arrival in Carthage where Aeneas meets Dido.
2. Aeneas' tale of the fall of Troy and his escape.
3. The tale of the adventures of the exiles on their voyage from Troy to Italy.
4. The tragic love of Dido for Aeneas, the Trojan's departure from Africa, and Dido's death.
5. Festival of sports held in Sicily in honor of Aeneas' dead father, Anchises.
6. Aeneas' visit to the prophetic Sibyl and his journey to the underworld.
7. Landing in Latium in Italy, and Juno's rousing the native prince, Turnus, to fight the Trojans.
8. Aeneas' expedition up the Tiber to find allies in the war, his learning early Italian myths, and the start of the fighting while he is absent.
9. Expedition of two Trojans, Nisus and Euryalus, to break through the enemy's camp and inform Aeneas of Turnus' attack, the burning of the Trojan ships, and Turnus' magnificent fighting.
10. The unproductive council of the gods, the return of Aeneas, and his search for Turnus whom Juno spirits away from the field of battle.
11. Truce for both sides to bury their dead, the breaking of the treaty, and the renewal of fighting where the Trojans drive the enemy back within its own city walls.
12. Encounter of the two champions, Aeneas and Turnus, and Turnus' death.

Virgil manipulates these characters and events to portray symbolically the whole history of Rome. He sees this history as an incorporation of three separate concepts:

1. the presence of the divine in men because of their ability to think and create lawful society;

2. the idea of heroes with a destiny;

3. the world of historical people and events.

At times he treats these concepts individually; at times they are woven together. It is this unique three-way vision of the poet, this ability to see human character and history symbolically, that enables Virgil to be ranked among the greatest poets of the world.

THE AENEID

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

BOOK I

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