Summary
Summary The Aeneid - Richard Jenkyns
- Course
- Institution
Notes on Masso9lit series by Richard Jenkyns on the Aeneid that can be used as scholarship for 30 markers
[Show more]
Seller
Follow
clempitrat
Content preview
Richard jenkynsDido and Aeneas – who’s to blame
- Told that dido does not care what her people think once she has consummate her love for Aeneas –
calls it marriage and adorns her blame
- Should we blame her, Aeneas, the gods?
- Story of dido and Aeneas as a self-contained tragedy within the larger poem of the Aeneid
- Aristotle in 4th century BC in poetics – considered theoretically what the nature of tragedy is
Tragedy is typically about a great person who is mostly good but not perfect and falls through
some hamartia – simple mistake or a moral error
Person cant be wholly good – it wouldn’t be tragic, fall would be repulsive
Person cant be wholly bad – fall would be a matter of satisfaction
Someone who fell because there was a flaw of character/sin that brought them down
- Dido doesn’t seem to have a moral flaw – made supernaturally to fall in love with Aeneas and imposed
on her from outside
- Dido’s moral struggle – whether she should yield to that passion
Is she wrong to do so?
- Dido corresponds to several figures from homer
Calypso, Circe, Nausicaa
Virgil brings out aspects of which dido is like and unlike these Homeric figures
- Story pattern for dido taken from epic of 3rd century BC
Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes – if a goddess/queen wants to have an affair with you and
you’re a hero it’s all right
- Tragedy is that it should have been all right -dido has sworn an oath of fidelity to her dead husband
and Aeneas has burden of destiny
- Not right to try and allocate blame – moment in cave invites us to share emotions of people and
sympathise with them
Augustus and the Aeneid
- Presence of Augustus can make readers uncomfortable – is it political propaganda?
- Great leader like Augustus would have wanted a panegyric poem about is glorious deeds
Great dynasts wanted that sort of thing
- Did Virgil have to write a praise poem about Augustus?
No – you didn’t have to write a praise poem about Augustus
o Augustus never got a poem about his glorious deeds
- What Virgil wrote – poem about the distant past where Augustus only appears as a future figure 3
times
Account of his life and achievements are not in the poem
- Importance of patronage – before printing you can’t make money out of being an author
Need to have independent income or you need patronage
- 30’s BC – Maecenas turned himself into the most successful literary patron in western history
Virgil, Horace and Varius
Created a brilliant literary circle
- Did he pressure them to write propaganda? – he cant have been as they didn’t
Wrote very little in first years
Virgil was working on the georgics
- Maecenas was astonishingly patient – prepared to wait for a very long time
What you want is a brilliant circle of poets and the name of Augustus in there
- Word Augustan has become a symbol for consummated civility – Augustan age regarded as one of the
high points of civilisation
Not primarily due to Augustus himself – because of the poets
- Poets gave him immortality in the future
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller clempitrat. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $7.73. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
53068 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now