At 12:27 PM 12/9/99 -0500, matthewspencer wrote: >but to me, although the poem might end abruptly, compared to its >predecessors, i am not sure how else the aeneid *could* have ended. i do >not think that anybody disagrees that aeneas is greatly changed by the >end, specifically in terms of how his own passions influence him. to end >the poem with some allussion that creates a more perfect whole, which is >i think what you want, that features aeneas not in the midst of passion, >must become artificial.
A few notes: 1. I'm not convinced that Aeneas has really changed over the course of the poem, at least not on the score of passion. Look, for instance, at the way Aeneas uses amens to describe himself in his account of the fall of Troy in Aen. 2 A 2.314 Arma amens capio; nec sat rationis in armis, A 2.745 Quem non incusaui amens hominumque deorumque, 2. An Aeneid that ends differently is not, at least was not, unthinkable. To my knowledge, there have been at least four different attempts to rewrite the ending or finish the poem. For more info and translations of two of them, see http://virgil.org/translations/ 3. What does it mean to call something in a poem artificial? Isn't it all artificial? To quote something from an Amazon ad I saw once, "Some people say life is the thing, but I prefer books." This is an exaggeration (I hope), but one of the great things about art is that it gives us things life can't -- at least not in one lifetime. Or as Sidney puts it: "Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done, neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too much lovely earth more lovely. Her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- David Wilson-Okamura http://geoffreychaucer.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] Macalester College Chaucer: An Annotated Guide to Online Resources ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
