This is an eccentric reply, in that I want to concentrate a) less on the epic hero than on the situation of political corruption which calls for V-style heroism b) on Roman elements in modern popular epic. Perhaps it's eccentric in other ways too. V is interested, of course, in the corruption and collapse of the Roman Republic. I went to see Star Wars/Phantom Menace having noted that it concerns the collapse of a Republic and wondering whether Roman analogies would be present. I thought that they were (I would!) in that the imagined Republic has the Roman features of a central Senate and peripheral client kingdoms. The chief magistrate presides over the Senate, which accords with Roman rather than modern European or American practice. The outlying clients have become a source of cash for Senatorial factions, so that the capital of the Republic shows signs of becoming what Sallust called a city for sale. At this rate I would say that Star Wars, our popular epic, refelcts Sallust's rather prosaic portrait of the corruption of a senatorial system rather than V's more poetic/epic view, where the problem is not so much money and greed as moral tension within the senatorial class, summed up (I think) in the verse 'Vincet amor patriae laudumque immensa cupido' (VI 823). The senatorial leaders loved their country but were caught up in a dangerously unlimited striving to be praised and admired. They became rash and ruthless in competition with each other and in service to the Republican ideal. Their corruption resulted because they were unable to limit their striving for praise and reputation even when it was beginning to destroy the country which they genuinely loved. Eventually the hero, Aeneas/Augustus had to sort things out by heroic deeds which, rather sadly, involved the abolition of the Republic. - Martin Hughes
On Fri, 9 Jul 1999, Delbridge wrote: > Hi, > > I'm a South African Latin student, and I have a project/assignment to do > which is fascinating me. I'd appreciate any ideas on my topic. > > I have to start off by showing how the Aeneid is an example of Roman Epic > poetry of Vergil's times, and give the basic characteristics of epic > poetry. That's the easy part. > > The twist is that I then have to go on to compare the epic of Roman times > to how WE perceive epic today. Thus, I have to show how Titanic, the > film, is an example of our modern-day epic, and show the similarities and > differences. (An obvious difference is that the medium is totally > different, i.e. visual, video etc. More subtle differences are going to be > the hero of the story and so on.) > > If anyone has any interesting ideas, please mail me! > > Thanks > > Shelly Delbridge > Cape Town > > South Africa > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. > Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message > "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You > can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
