Aeneas And Grief

  The Aeneid is a poem of Fate, which acts as an ever-present determinant, and as such Aeneas is entirely in the hands of destiny. The unerring and inexorable passage of fate, assisted by the Gods' intervention, is impossible to prevent and its path does create many victims along the way, who are expendable for Rome to be created. In the Aeneid, mortals suffer, no matter what they do or how good a life they lead and they are unable to rely on the Gods for assistance. However, the Odyssey is a poem of morality, where the good are exulted and the bad are punished ("The blessed gods don't like wicked acts. Justice and fair play are what they respect" O.14.84). It

Despite his accomplishments and the glory associated with his life, Aeneas only achieves the status of hero through divine intervention, and this god-given position causes him just as much grief as it does splendor.

I will be analyzing the piece Aeneas and His Family Fleeing Troy. This artwork is currently being displayed at the San Diego Museum of Art, in Balboa Park near downtown San Diego. This painting was made in 1635 during the Baroque Period in France by Simon Vouet. Vouet was the most influential painter of his time and did much to make Paris an artistic center of Europe. Vouet was heavily influenced by Caravaggio who also heavily influenced other painters during Vouet’s time. In this paper, I will be exploring issues such as material, subject matter, scale, historical context, light, human figure, and finally museum context.

There are many lessons that can be learned from reading Homer's The Iliad. One of which is understanding the stages of grief. One can literally watch Achilles go through all five stages when he morns the death of his comrade Patroclus. Achilles moves through Denial and Isolation, Depression, Anger, Bargaining and Acceptance in the short time after his close friends death.

In Virgil’s poem, The Aeneid, the ideal Roman hero is depicted in the form of Aeneas. Not only does Aeneas represent the Roman hero, but he also represents what every Roman citizen is called to be. Each Roman citizen must posses two major virtues, he must remain pious, and he must remain loyal to the Roman race. In the poem, Aeneas encompasses both of these virtues, and must deal with both the rewards and costs of them.

Aeneas was a good leader because he was brave, strong, and selfless. The Aeneid was written by Virgil during the reign of Augustus in 19 BCE, and the character of Aeneas was meant to represent Augustus and suggest that Augustus was a direct descendant of Aeneas. Many historians think that Virgil sounded a bit sarcastic when stating how great Aeneas was, implying he himself was not a fan of Emperor Augustus. Throughout the book, Aeneas is referred to as “The Great and Good” and other phrases along those lines, and is always spoken of as a great hero. He does things such as kill deer for his men, or survive a terrible storm, and he even has the approval of the great god Jupiter. Aeneas is a demigod, (his mother is Venus), making him more powerful and respected than any other Trojan men. The Romans valued physical and mental strength, both of which Aeneas has.

Can you know true happiness without knowing sorrow? Happiness is a subjective emotion. Some people say they cannot be happy without first experiencing bad things. I do not think this is entirely true. Babies know happiness when they get to play with their favorite toy or when they see something new that excites them. Now some might argue that babies have experienced sorrow or unhappiness when they are crying however, I think their short attention span makes them forget sorrow much easier than happiness.

Can you know true happiness without knowing sorrow? Happiness is a subjective emotion. Some people say they cannot be happy without first experiencing bad things. I do not think this is entirely true. Babies know happiness when they get to play with their favorite toy or when they see something new that excites them. Now some might argue that babies have experienced sorrow or unhappiness when they are crying however, I think their short attention span makes them forget sorrow much easier than happiness.

Many people seem to be under the impression that the Aeneid is a celebration of Roman glory, led by the hero of fate Aeneas. I find these preconceived ideas hard to reconcile with my actual reading of the text. For starters, I have a hard time viewing Aeneas as a hero at all. Almost any other main characters in the epic, from Dido to Camilla to Turnus, have more heroic qualities than Aeneas. This is especially noteworthy because many of these characters are his enemies. In addition, Aeneas is presented as a man with no free will. He is not so much bound to duty as he is shielded by it. It offers a convenient way for hum to dodge crucial moral questions. Although this doesn’t necessarily make

In contrast, the Odyssey is not a poem of heroic life that is set off starkly against a background once-an-for-all, conclusive death; it is rather the poem of a kind of life that is infiltrated with death, in which death is continuously and incessantly present (citation). For Odysseus, the song of his homecoming, his nostos, will be the same thing as Achilles’ kleos (Nagy, pg. 200). And to achieve this heroic endeavor is to survive at all cost. The two poles of life and death fuse here. The world of the Odyssey is an existence in flux that is continuously in contact with the unconscious realm and death, as warp and woof. It consists as much of its background and underground, of the yawning abysses beneath and behind. Odysseus continuously crossing over, moving in and out of these magical realms (the islands of Circe, Calypso’s hideaway, the river of Okeanos, and Hades itself…to name a few); in the most proper sense, he is the one who is suspended over the gulfs and chasms of existence, suggests by the

Throughout the Aeneid, one of the consistent themes that is rampant throughout the book is the theme of pain and suffering. In each crevice of the epic poem, there are always mentions of the horrors and emotions that the characters have to go through. However, this theme of suffering throughout the book allows that characters to appear more human to the reader as it is not filled with unrealistic happiness, which allows the audience to empathise with the characters as they go through problems which are relatable. By having the theme of pain and suffering being a major part of the Aeneid's plot, with mention of Book XI in particular, we are able to relate the suffering Aeneas and other characters in this book have with our own suffering, which allows us to look at the characters in order to get a sense of what we can do to overcome pain and suffering when faced with adversity,

After viewing the two operas, it is clear that there are many differences and similarities between the two performances. One of the biggest differences I noticed right away was the opera scenery that each of the shows had. L’Orfeo, written by Claudio Monteverdi had a much more theatrical vibe with elaborate scenery, props, and costumes used by the performers. The backdrop changed colors and had scenery images to help with representing the setting and time of day throughout the performance. Many props were used by all roles of the cast. The costumes were more elaborate and detailed compared to that of Dido and Aeneas, written by Henry Purcell. The costumes for L’Orfeo were geared to fitting into the Greek Mythology period since the opera

Aeneas can be portrayed as a “hesitant hero” many times throughout the books. However, it was more evident in the first half than the second half. In the first half of the epic he showed more hesitance in his actions when faced with hard decisions, and part of that hesitance followed him into the second half. This hesitance can be both a strength and a weakness for him in terms of his people's perception of him, and how the gods view him as both a man and a hero.

The Poet writes Lavinia’s fate allowing her to cope and plan so she can enjoy all the experiences she had more. Very early in the novel, Lavinia starts to talk with the poet and learns that her fate is already made, for she is in the very poem he wrote. She learns all about her future, her husband, and her legacy. She knows that along with glory she will know grief and devastation. This allows her to start understanding and grasping losses before events actually happen and enjoy time she has. After Aeneas, Lavinia’s husband, passes away she thinks back to her grief. “And I had known what was coming. I have lived with Aeneas’ death a long time, from the time I first saw his face…” (Le Guin,226). She is able to except that her husband will die

“However, the true conflict in this scene is not so much the opposition between hetero- and homosexuality, but the distinction between sexual enjoyment that falls outside marriage, characterized in this scene by "feathers" (Q, 1.1.39), "gems" (42), and "slumbers" (37), and the savage realities of the conjugal imperative, identified by Juno's "blowes" (4), "bloud" (8), and binding "cordes" (14)” (Williams 44).