Aeneid Books II and III, begin to play the "Homer vs. NOT-Homer" game very seriously. As Aeneas narrates Troy's fall and his first book of wanderings, he combines two types of critique: scenes Homer alludes to or describes, but retold from the Trojan point of view; and scenes Homer does not mention, often scenes that make the Greeks look immoral and savage, again seen from the Trojan point of view. All the while, Virgil is reshaping the Greek textual tradition as it represents Aeneas' flight from Troy to answer, or at least to make un-answerable, questions you raised when reading Book I (Is Aeneas married?; What happened to his wife?; Will Dido actually become Aeneas' wife?; How can Aeneas separate himself from Dido if fate decrees that Rome and Carthage must be enemies?). Try to keep track of the answers Virgil's text proposes, and pay close attention to circumstances in which he allows room for doubt. Remember he seems to be in a position to control destiny, itself, because he describes events that are intended to make the Rome he inhabits come into being as the center of a world empire. When he does not seize that full control, perhaps there are reasons he does not do so.
Book II‑‑
1)
How does Sinon's lie reflect his kinship with Odysseus in an
unflattering way?
2)
What are the key abstract qualities Laocoon represents, and how might his
death be interpreted by an audience who knew what the Horse really was
3)
Why is Aeneas first aware that the Greeks have entered Troy, and why does
Virgil use this method of notification?
4)
Why is Deiphobos' house the first to be consumed in flames?
(Remember your Odyssey or wait until Book 6.)
5)
What is Aeneas' first response to the realization that the city is
doomed, and how does he describe the emotions felt by him and those with him?
What does Virgil want you to feel as a result of this comparison?
6)
What role do the gods play in the night's events, as far as Aeneas has
described them (e.g., re: Cassandra and the others who die at Pallas Athena's
altar)?
7)
The death‑scene of Polites (Priam's youngest son) and Priam
is the first instance of a theme in the Aeneid which we have
encountered before in Greek drama.
What does Priam say to
Pyrrhus as Polites bleeds to death between them, and how does
Pyrrhus' reply suggest yet another view of warrior‑heroes (also
see Book I, #4)? How does
this sight affect Aeneas?
8)
What prompts Venus to speak to Aeneas, and how might you interpret that
event allegorically?
9)
When Venus speaks to Aeneas during Troy's fall in order to
clarify his mortal vision, what does she enable him to see and
what does that mean? That
is, what is it to see with an immortal's vision, and how might this relate to
what Virgil is trying to do for you?
Compare Ovid's project in Metamorphoses.
10)
How does Aeneas attempt to persuade Anchises to leave Troy, and to what
previous event does he refer with particular horror?
What convinces Anchises to heed his son's plea to leave Troy,
and where else in Western culture have such signs been taken to
signify someone's great destiny?
11)
Aeneas' departure from Troy requires him to bear an unusual
burden, and to dispose the rest of his family and goods about him
in a very specific order.
What does this tableau mean,
symbolically? (Compare Book II, #2
above.)
12)
How do you interpret Creusa's loss and Virgil's ambiguous
explanation of what happened to her?
(Also, what scenes from Greek literature is Virgil transforming here?)
Book III‑‑
1)
What does the story of Polydorus do for the political message
of this poem?
2)
When Aeneas founds Pergamea, what does he exclaim and how does that
relate to the events described in Book II?
Some thematic issues become apparent at about this time.
3)
Why is Crete the wrong place for the Trojans to settle and
how does that fit a thematic structure in this text?
(Hint: Who ruled Crete, and
what happened to him? A comparison
with Agamemnon's behavior at Aulis is possible‑‑check Hamilton or
Graves.) How does Aeneas
learn of this?
4)
What Odyssey theme might be connected to the encounter with
Celaeno and the Harpies, and how does this event compare with Odysseus' behavior
with similar creatures? Why?
5)
Numerous critics have commented on the "apocalyptic" structure of The
Aeneid. See, for instance, Frank
Kermode's The Sense of an Ending (N.Y.: Oxford UP, 1967), a reading of
the epic that sees its action as everywhere determined by its inevitable
conclusion, a position that has influenced later writers such as Anne Rehill in
The Apocalypse Is Everywhere: A Popular History of America's Favorite
Nightmare (N.Y.: Greenwood, 2009) 73. (See also Michael Putnam's
nuanced reply to Kermode in Virgil's Aeneid: Interpretation and
Influence [Charlotte, NC.: U North Carolina P, 1995]
25.) That is, Virgil salts the text with predictions (supposedly
made in the deep past) about things to come, things which (by the time Virgil is
writing) already have come to pass.
Another apocalyptic device is allusion by means of a significant place reference
to important events which later will happen there ("and Marsha forgave John at
the little colonial hamlet of Appomatox").
At Leucate, Aeneas erects a shield and an inscription that has
extraordinary significance when viewed from the perspective of Caesar Augustus
(Octavian). What will happen at
Leucate in the years before the The Aeneid is written and how was
Octavian involved?
6)
Note the meeting of Aeneas and Andromache, when she wonders
if he is a spirit. What has
she been doing just before he arrives, and how might this situate our hero?
How many times and on what sorts of occasions
do characters in The Aeneid meet entities who are not really
there? What effect does
Virgil attain by this thematic
technique?
7)
How do the predictions of Helenus differ from the implied prophecy in #5
above re: Leucate? How do both work
in The Aeneid's "apocalyptic" structure?
8)
What is the function of Achaemenides' story and upon what
model has Virgil constructed it?
9)
What happens at Drepanum, and why does Virgil devote so little time to
something which (believe me) is of such enormous consequence?