No Subject

[bob]

this book is not finished i am distruaght at the fact thta a book so old and is not finished

[Fizz]

Before judging Aeneas as heroic or unherioc you have to appreciate what you are comparing him to. The Homeric heroes such as Hector are of a whole different world to that of Aeneas. Virgil purposefully humanises Aeneas: he weeps, he gets scared and he makes mistakes. However, the emphasis on his piety is notable. He is not obsessed with personal glory as the homeric heroes were, he loved his men and family and strived to protect them over anything else. Virgil is trying to open our eyes. He is exposing the worsening brutality of war in The Aenead and enlightens us to the fact that war is not as noble and glorifying as it was in The Iliad. Aeneas is not my favourite hero by any means and I agree that he could be perceived as overrated when compared to such heroes as Hector but I believe that this was Virgils point. Aeneas is a human. He is lonely and oppressed...maybe they all were and we were just never let so far into the psychology of them. Aeneas should not have killed Turnus, but he was acting on impulse and responding to his passion - we've all done that, maybe not on the battlefield but in our own little ways. Don't condemn Aeneas, relate to him. Stop seeing him as a hero and start seeing his as a man - it's easier to understand and empathise with him then.

[awph]

Aeneas is not the kind of person you 'like' or 'dislike'. We are not shown his social side, whether he was a good bloke to have around, whether he was kind to his cat, whether he told jokes. Virgil is presenting him in a different way - as a man, an individual, with a huge burden to carry, which he is not particularly keen to bear. He never says 'This is horrible: stop the epic: I want to get off.' The comments of Fizz (?) are more to the point. If you are looking for a man to like, a hero to adore, go to Odysseus - a slug, but an impressive person who loves his wife and fights to return to his own bed; go to Achilles - though he is a liar and selfish. Perhaps it is Aeneas' good qualities that make him less likeable.<br><br>Bob seems to think that someone ought to have gotten round to finish it by now. I am sure that Virgil is in no position to mind if somebody did. However, before deciding to finish it, it probably matters to decided what's missing.<br><br><br><br><br><br>

[Rebel]

Everyone seems to think he's the hero, but I don't like him. He gets called "good" and "righteous" but I don't find him likable.