<< message forwarded by listowner, David Wilson-Okamura >> From: "Timothy Mallon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 11:09:51 PST
Remember though, that the *Homeric* Odysseus (presumably the one whom Aeneas shadows in the first half of the A.) is neither bad nor unwise. The idea of a character having to change to keep aligned with a structure seems at first blush at odds with how a writer would conceive of the character. It is better to describe the first half of the A. as Odyssean in situation or pattern, the latter as Iliadic. Aeneas is the same man throughout, placed in different quandaries. The difference between Aeneas and Achilles is usually emphasized, on the grounds that V. envisages that Rome will escape the kind of destruction that caps human achievement in the _Iliad_, but I can't see much reason for developing the Achilles/Hector ~ Aeneas/Turnus analogy, other than as bringing forward a fundamental likeness. Had V. wished to emphasize dissimilarity, he could have set the A.'s narrative frame a little later: Iliad-style furor and conquest followed by the renewal of Italy. As it stands, the A. seems to me to emphasize the notion of repetition or reprise of situations and roles in different places and by different men. *************************************************** ecce non curo nec resisto nec reprehendo Augustinus, Confessiones, lib. XI cap. xx **************************************************** -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 1999 10:10 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: VIRGIL: Shield in book eight <content snipped> the first half of Aeneis is an Odyssee (or an Anti-Odyssee); the second half is an Ilias (or an Anti-Ilias); so in the first half Aeneas is experienced, "polytropos" like Odysseus, but in a good and wise form, because he is an Anti-Odysseus there; for the second half he has to change his character, because he becomes to be an Achilleus (or Anti-Achilleus), stepping though blood like an old Greek hero of the Ilias. the terrible heroic end of these lines show accuratly that the poem has not become ready. that is not the end of an epos, but an interruption, a brutal one. Aeneis is a fragment. grusz, hansz ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
