In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Melanie
Austin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
I suspect that Virgil intended Aeneas to be a hero Augustus would have
viewed as ideal. The degree to which his epic is ironic has been the
subject of much debate. I was taught (by a prof who ignored the irony)
that Creusa dies so that Aeneas may found a new Troy via a new
marriage. It was not wrong of Aeneas to tell Creusa to follow him;
rather, it was an assertion of the patriarchal notion of male power,
control, and continuity. One can always find another wife, after all.
Creusa seems to cooperate with the patriarchal order when she appears
to Aeneas after her death.
Which Vergil after all was not challenging. Besides, for the purposes of
the plot he needed Aeneas to be wifeless when he arrived in Carthage; he
could have made him a widower before the fall, but the loss described is
more pathetic. (And Creusa, like its masculine counterpart Creon, was
the favoured name for a genealogical item invented at need.)
She does not accuse him, as Dido will; she
just points him in the direction he must take to fulfill his mission.
And that is part at least of what she is there for.
In both ancient and modern literature, it is the fault of
'Anglo-Saxons' to focus on characters as if they were real human beings
to the exclusion of their function within the work of literature. It is
easy enough to read Homer for real human beings; but was Vergil so
concerned? Dido, who has negative features often overlooked, is 'real',
or rounded, enough; but it is precisely when Aeneas steps out of the
Idealized Roman to be an individual that he is, at least morally, most
fallible: falling for Dido, killing Turnus. But there again, historical
aetiology requires Dido to have ground for cursing him; and can anyone
envisage Turnus settling down as either a private citizen or the First
Minister of Aeneas' government without nurturing his resentment or being
the focus for any malcontents? Neither poetically nor politically is the
individual the be-all and end-all that English-speakers seem to wish.
Leofranc Holford-Strevens
--
*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*
Leofranc Holford-Strevens
67 St Bernard's Road usque adeone
Oxford scire MEVM nihil est, nisi ME scire hoc sciat alter?
OX2 6EJ
tel. +44 (0)1865 552808(home)/353865(work) fax +44 (0)1865 512237
email:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (home)/[EMAIL PROTECTED] (work)
*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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
