Re: VIRGIL: Turnus ~ Mark Antony?
Another possible angle could be the destruction of alternative routes which Rome could take. Just as the different aspects of Dido are refracted and split into Amata and Lavinia, so that the former can be safely isolated and destroyed, while the latter remains as a tabula rasa for the imprint of imperial destiny, so the duality of Aeneas in Carthage - pius Octavian or decadent Antony - can be split into an Augustan Aeneas whose Antonine qualities are displaced onto Turnus and safely eliminated. Or maybe I'm getting carried away... Bob From: David Wilson-Okamura [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: VIRGIL: Turnus ~ Mark Antony? Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 22:28:50 -0500 While getting up a lecture on Shakespeare's _Antony and Cleopatra_ a month or so ago, I happened to notice that there are several references to a duel between Antony and Octavian. The duel never comes off, of course, but according to Plutarch (Shakespeare's primary source for the play), Mark Anthony _did_ challenge Octavian to single combat before the battle of Actium. My question is this: could this challenge have some bearing on the single combat at the end of the Aeneid? Is Turnus, in some sense, Mark Anthony? Servius mentions Mark Anthony several times in his commentary; at no point, however, does he suggest (and now I'm getting to my real point) that Mark Anthony = Turnus. Which, I suppose, shows that Servius wasn't totally crackers. But what do you think? If you buy into the idea that there is _some_ historical allegory in the Aeneid, might not the duel with Turnus represent a climactic moment in the career of Augustus? If so, which one? Anthony's defeat at Actium? Or has Virgil taken it upon himself to represent Actium in such a way as to give Octavian credit for the duel that never fought, as if to say, he could have done it, even though he didn't? One other point in favor of the loose Anthony = Turnus equation I'm proposing here: they are both very sexy, very romantic, and very doomed. I am not suggesting that the duel can't be other things as well (including itself). I don't think we should be put off, though, by the idea that Virgil might be using a single combat to represent a battle that was actually fought by large armies or navies. Think, for instance, of the battle between Prince Arthur and the Souldan in Faerie Queene book 5: in the fiction of the poem, it's just two guys fighting; but it's also a transparent allegory for the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Did Spenser get the idea from the end of the Aeneid? That's harder to say, though Michael O'Connell (in Mirror and Veil: The Historical Dimension of Spenser's Faerie Queene) has argued persuasively, I think, that Spenser's historical allegory is modeled on the practice of Virgil as expounded by Servius... But I've gone on far too long. What think ye? --- David Wilson-Okamurahttp://virgil.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] Macalester College Virgil Tradition: discussion, bibliography, c. --- --- 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 _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. --- 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
Re: VIRGIL: Turnus ~ Mark Antony?
In the same spirit, the duel might be thought to represent both the actual battle with Antony at Actium and the duel that Imp. Caesar refused to fight and could not have fought without upsetting the fiction that the war was being fought not between himself and Antony but between Rome and Egypt. Leofranc Holford-Strevens In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Bob Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes Another possible angle could be the destruction of alternative routes which Rome could take. Just as the different aspects of Dido are refracted and split into Amata and Lavinia, so that the former can be safely isolated and destroyed, while the latter remains as a tabula rasa for the imprint of imperial destiny, so the duality of Aeneas in Carthage - pius Octavian or decadent Antony - can be split into an Augustan Aeneas whose Antonine qualities are displaced onto Turnus and safely eliminated. Or maybe I'm getting carried away... Bob *_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_* 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)/267865(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
VIRGIL: Turnus ~ Mark Antony?
While getting up a lecture on Shakespeare's _Antony and Cleopatra_ a month or so ago, I happened to notice that there are several references to a duel between Antony and Octavian. The duel never comes off, of course, but according to Plutarch (Shakespeare's primary source for the play), Mark Anthony _did_ challenge Octavian to single combat before the battle of Actium. My question is this: could this challenge have some bearing on the single combat at the end of the Aeneid? Is Turnus, in some sense, Mark Anthony? Servius mentions Mark Anthony several times in his commentary; at no point, however, does he suggest (and now I'm getting to my real point) that Mark Anthony = Turnus. Which, I suppose, shows that Servius wasn't totally crackers. But what do you think? If you buy into the idea that there is _some_ historical allegory in the Aeneid, might not the duel with Turnus represent a climactic moment in the career of Augustus? If so, which one? Anthony's defeat at Actium? Or has Virgil taken it upon himself to represent Actium in such a way as to give Octavian credit for the duel that never fought, as if to say, he could have done it, even though he didn't? One other point in favor of the loose Anthony = Turnus equation I'm proposing here: they are both very sexy, very romantic, and very doomed. I am not suggesting that the duel can't be other things as well (including itself). I don't think we should be put off, though, by the idea that Virgil might be using a single combat to represent a battle that was actually fought by large armies or navies. Think, for instance, of the battle between Prince Arthur and the Souldan in Faerie Queene book 5: in the fiction of the poem, it's just two guys fighting; but it's also a transparent allegory for the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Did Spenser get the idea from the end of the Aeneid? That's harder to say, though Michael O'Connell (in Mirror and Veil: The Historical Dimension of Spenser's Faerie Queene) has argued persuasively, I think, that Spenser's historical allegory is modeled on the practice of Virgil as expounded by Servius... But I've gone on far too long. What think ye? --- David Wilson-Okamurahttp://virgil.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] Macalester College Virgil Tradition: discussion, bibliography, c. --- --- 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
Re: VIRGIL: Turnus ~ Mark Antony?
I've always loved the closing lines of the Aeneid, simply because it DOES seem to reflect the Augustan triumph. Remember the prominence that Augustus has on the shield of aeneas (the twin rays of light coming from his temples (I think- going from memory). I don't think it is too much to suggest that the final conflict between Aeneas and turnus represents the end of the civil wars, whether you see it as representing Actium (of course this was already described). Remember, too, that Virgil is using homer as well- is he also linking this final duel with the single combats seen in the Iliad? My thoughts (not based on scholarly argument, but based more on a gut feeling, is that Virgil would not have been out of place as a Vietnam protestor of the 1960s- read those last two lines carefully- I think Virgil is saying the wars were a waste of Rome's valuable resources. Just my two cents (or three mal, since I'm in China)- again, gut feelings only. James Stewart Northeast Normal University Changchun, China _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. --- 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
