The Aeneid Modern Scholarship

Richard Jenkyns - Characterisation of Aeneas

"It is the constant awareness of duty and responsibility that makes Aeneas a new kind of epic hero"

Deryck Williams - Book 6

"The future destiny of Rome he is strengthened and resolved to be successful in his mission"

Helga Nehrkorn - Book 6

"Aeneas descends into the underworld, learning to understand the historic impact of his task"

Kristine Perkell - Book 2 and Augustan values

"Aeneas failed Creusa; he has much more care for his son and father"

Desmond M - Characterisation of Dido

"Dido's change from a good to a bad queen occurs because her activities as a lover explicitly compromise her status as a good king"

Richard Jenkyns - Characterisation of Creusa

"Creusa's main concern is not to heighten emotions; rather she tries to dampen it down"

Deryck Williams - Augustan Rome

"The Aeneid reflects the governmental policy of Augustus in moral, social and religious ideas, not because they were Augustus' ideas, but because they were Virgil's ... both men saw things the same way.

Ian Du Quesney - Roman history and the epic

"Reinforce our recognition of the rightness of Aeneas' decision, the wrongness of Antony's"

Camps - Homeric influence

"Invention finds much of its raw material in reminiscence of the Homeric poems: the final product is always distinctively his own"

Camps - Fate and free will

"His will is free and his decisions his own that distinguishes his situation from other characters"

G.E Duckworth - Structure of the Aeneid

"The books in the first half mirror in subject those in the second half"

Denis Feeney - Plot

"There is an added formal disappointment, in that this poem has invited us to see it as being very like another a poem [The Iliad], only to rob us of the healing which the other poem achieves by continuing, by refusing to stop here"

Denis Feeney - Death of Turnus

"The explosive release with which the poem ends has been massively prepared for, and gives the ending its own peculiar sense of adequacy"

Emma Buckely - Furor

"In the event, it seems that Aeneas makes no active choice at all: overcome by mad passions, he slaughters Turnus"

Emma Buckely - Death of Turnus

"For when Aeneas kills Turnus, Virgil employs the verb, condere, which means not just 'to stab', but also 'to found'. When Aeneas puts Turnus to the sword, he sets in motion the foundation of the Roman race"

Gerry Nusbaum - Structure of the Aeneid

"Books 2-8 read almost like a flashback over the whole ten years of the war"

Gerry Nusbaum - Book 2

"The end of Troy becomes, in Virgil, the beginning of Rome; from the ashes of Troy will rise the Phoenix of Rome"

Emma Buckely - Narration of the Aeneid

"Virgil narrates a personal struggle for survival and success that we can empathise with and follow"

Harrison - Battle scenes

"The shorter battle scenes are more like gladiator fights, this makes them more appealing to a Roman audience"

Gransden - Book 4

"Likens book 4 to a tragedy, where the author is a chorus, not only narrating, but commenting on the action"

Thomas - Book 8

"One function of Book 8 is to suspend the impending war that will soon happen"

Cox - Homeric influence

"Aeneas leaving Troy symbolises a departure from Homeric values"

Bob Cowan - Homeric influence

"There's not much question that the Aeneid is a sequel to the Iliad"

Ian Du Quesnay - Homeric influence

"It was the poet's intentions, according to Roman scholar Servius, to imitate Homer and to praise Augustus through his ancestors"

Simon Swain - Book 6

"Aeneid 6 is, perhaps more than any other book of the poem, permeated by Homeric derivation and allusion"

Simon Swain - Homeric influence

"It is a compliment to and a complement of the work of the maestro, an attempt to emulate, not just to imitate"

Richard Rutherford - Homeric influence

"He was not only imitating but seeking to rival both the Homeric epics - perhaps he even dreamed of surpassing them, of conquering the genre for Latin poetry"

Richard Jenkyns - Aeneas' actions

"The contradictions in Aeneas' actions make him difficult to like, but certainly make him human"

RD Williams - Roman heroism

"Virgil's problem was to present a character appropriate to be called a hero in a time which was no longer 'heroic' as he was the first Roman he has to foreshadow the qualities of a different civilisation"

RD Williams - Greek heroism vs Roman heroism

"The Homeric heroes are great individuals, but Aeneas has to be the social man not aiming to achieve personal satisfaction but to use his qualities in order to achieve their success"

Damien Nelis - Book 4

"Book 4 seems to give us the story of Dido where Aeneas has a secondary role"

RD Williams - Characterisation of Turnus

"His cause is in his eyes wholly just - to resist the invader who wishes to steal his bride; but because the march of destiny is in a wholly different direction, his happiness an his life must be sacrificed"

RD Williams - Similarities of Dido and Turnus

"Turnus in many essentials resembles Dido as an obstacle to the divine which must be overcome, yet when he is overcome there is powerful sympathy for him and a feeling of injustice"

Gale - Characterisation of Turnus and Aeneas

"The crucial difference between Turnus and Aeneas is a distinction between personal glory and impersonal duty, private desires and public pietas"

McDonald - Characterisation of Turnus and Aeneas

"Turnus driving force seems to be amor, Aeneas his commitment to labor"

P.F Burke - Characterisation of Mezentius

"Mezentius is a complex and apparently contradictory character. Virgil's method of portraying him changes as the poet shows us various seemingly inconsistent traits and aspects; but, thematically he represents the tragedy of primitive virtue perverted"

Bob Cowan - Death of Euryalus

"The death of love and Euryalus' death suggest the needless and tragic destruction of a thing of beauty by a mindless, impersonal force. The image fits into a wider network of anthems for doomed youth within the Aeneid"

Bob Cowan - Nisus and Euryalus

"We feel sympathy and even admiration for Nisus and Euryalus yet we are uneasy about their brutal slaughter of sleeping men, their desire for glory and spoils, their failure - a result of these actions, but also of their mutual devotion and privileging of the personal over the public"

Gerry Nusbaum - Aeneas' mission

"Aeneas' mission demands many sacrifices, and the mark of a good Roman leader is to put his personal goals and feelings second to the greater good of the community"

Gerry Nusbaum - Characterisation of Aeneas in book 2

"Aeneas did absolutely everything that he could do to help before leaving Troy for Italy"

Bob Cowan - Aeneas and Augustan values

"Pius Aeneas, respectful of his duty to god, man, country and family, He is a model for the Emperor Augustus, a template for what a good Roman is expected to be "

Fiachra Mac Gorain - Aeneas and Augustan values

"Aeneas displays virtues that are quintessentially Roman, and his character is consistent with the ideals which Augustus was keen to promote: religious, social and familial"

Richard Rutherford - Characterisation of Turnus

"Orthodoxy has it that Turnus is a 'Homeric' hero, dashing, unthinking and violent, who must give way to the new style hero, the proto-Roman Aeneas"

Susanna Morton Braund - Characterisation of Aeneas

"Others see Aeneas' anger as a surprising lapse or even as something sinister, which may suggest that there is a dark irrational element lurking in even the mist perfect hero"

Bruce Gibson - Book 2

"Displaying his piety in carrying his father on his shoulders away from Troy"

Damien Nelis - Structure of book 4

"Reads as an independent work"

Damien Nelis - Characterisation of Dido

"Dido is beautiful, generous and kind"

Ian Du Quesnay - Characterisation of Dido

"Dido is certainly a victim of circumstances and the gods"

Philip Hardie - Modern audience and Dido

"As modern readers Dido evokes our sincerest sympathy"

Richard Rutherford - Allecto and Turnus

"Virgil, through Allecto and Turnus as elsewhere, shows a deeper and more alarming awareness of the power of evil in the world, and of the powerlessness of man in the face of such irrational forces"

Paul F. Burke - Role of Drances

"Drances functions as a delaying element which allows Virgil to defer the duel and the end of the epic until the twelfth book"

Paul F. Burke - Characterisation of Turnus

"Turnus is both the noble man of action (Hector) and the selfish lover (Paris)"

Oliver Lyne - Priam

"Old king as a rounded figure deserving sympathy and respect"

R.D Williams - Augustan Rome

"Essentially the Aeneid is a national poem; Virgil wrote this poem to explore what Romans were like, what they should be like and what they could teach the world"

R.D Williams - Impact of the Aeneid

"It is a great mistake to think that Aeneas is modelled on by Augustus, it is rather the case that Virgil is trying to depict a character upon whom Romans of his day could model themselves"

R.D Williams - Book 6

"The pageant of unborn Roman heroes which Anchises describes is the most powerful patriotic message in the whole poem"

Denis Feeney - Roman history and the epic

"The power of the Aeneid to impose its meaning and shape upon history is an image of Augustus' power to impose his meaning and shape upon history"

Philip Hardie - Book 8

"As we follow Aeneas in his tour of Rome, we are continually invited to juxtapose the past and the present; Virgil is challenging his audience to imagine what is was like then, and compare it to now"

Ellen O'Gorman - Dido's curse vs Jupiter's speech

"While Jupiter emphasises victory, Dido reminds us of the costs of that victory"

R.D Williams - Portrayal of war

"So powerful was Virgil's sympathy for the defeated that it often seems to conflict with the triumph of Rome's achievement"

Isabel Paintin - Ara Pacis

"Augustus was also shown performing a sacrifice, as also was Aeneas portrayed performing the same right as he first set foot in Italy. Perhaps Augustus is being connected directly with Aeneas"

Edith Hall - Characterisation of Aeneas

"Aeneas is a pious hero"

R.D Williams - Pietas

"This basic feeling of social responsibility in Aeneas is defined by Virgil in the standing epithet he gives to his hero - pius"

Bob Cowan - Symbolism of the storm in book 1

"The storm which engulfs Aeneas and the Trojans is not purely allegorical, but it does symbolise the effects which the many faces of furor have when they are unleashed upon the world"

Harrison - Characterisation of Juno

"Juno is a typical soap opera bitch"

Camps - Characterisation of the gods

"The gods are depicted in a human shape which human attributes"

Richard Rutherford - Role of the gods

"Women, and everyone else, are powerless under the forces of the gods. Turnus is hopeless due to the manipulations of the gods."

Galinsky - Neptune in book 1

"The simile of the statesman calming the mob when describing Neptune is used to link him to Augustus"

R.D Williams - Fate

"In Homer fate indeed governs men's actions, but it is a short term fate, something which determines the problems of the moment, or at the most of a man's lifetime but in Virgil fate has its plan for hundreds and thousands of years ahead. In a paradoxical way it requires the cooperation of a man for its fulfilment"

Fiachra Mac Gorain - Book 6

"The book [6] exhibits a profound sense of religious awe"

R.D Williams - Role of the gods

"It is only in the world after death that Virgil can justify the ways of God to men"

Susanna Morton Braund - Juno

"The Aeneid can also be read as the story about wrath of Juno"

Bob Cowan - Father/son bond

"Father-son relationships and suffering are central to the plot"

Ian Du Quesnay - Dido and the gods

"The unhappiness which leads to her suicide is the result of the intervention of the gods"

Ian Du Quesnay - Dido and Aeneas

"It is too easy to focus on the sufferings of Dido and to ignore those of Aeneas or even blame him for Dido's death"

Richard Jenkyns - Characterisation of Camilla

"She is one of Virgil's strangest and most original creations, both delicate and savage, both virginal and fierce"

Richard Jenkyns - Diversity of the epic

"His poetry has room for a wide range of men and women because, after all, he is interested in the diversity of the world and the diversity of people that it contains"

Damien Nelis - Wounded doe metaphor

"Dido's wound is internal at the beginning of the book, but real by the end"

Philip Hardie - Characterisation of Dido

"She is the first of her type, so we can hardly blame her for failing in her mission to keep her people safe"

Gildenhard and Henderson - Characterisation of Camilla

"Camilla is an androgynous monstrosity"

Paul Burke - Role of Amata

"Amata shares with Turnus the guilt of the war and by her death, removes it from the Latin people"

Ellen Olliensis - Role of women

"The effortlessly virtuous women of the epic, prove their virtue precisely by submitting to the masculine plot of history"

Fiachra Mac Gorain - Roman history and the epic

"Virgil's epic aimed to explore the concerns of Roman history through the vehicle of myth"

Bob Cowan - Augustan Rome

"The poem is 'really' about, the contemporary political situation at Rome, and the ability (or inability) of men like Cicero, Cato, Caesar, and Augustus to use their authority to calm the frenzy which leads to civil war"

Llewellyn Morgan - Portrayal of war

"Virgil is trying to persuade his readers to think differently about the civil wars, they are ghastly, but they were necessary too"

Gransden - Fate

"The concept of fate dominates the Aeneid"

Gransden - The gods

"In the Aeneid the gods work through human wills and desires"

R.D Williams - Characterisation of Aeneas

"He is no superhuman figure, he is very much an ordinary mortal"

T.S Pattie - Portrayal of war

"Aeneas does in warfare what has to be done, but he is generally deeply unhappy about it"

Gordon Williams - End of the epic

"It is Aeneas who loses in the end"