The Aeneid Discussion Group

[bluevictim]

Yeah, is there really any need to compare these two great works? I think you should all stick to the story at hand, as you said Virgil, the Aeneid.

I guess I'm one of the main culprits. Like I said, I think that the Aeneid invites comparison with the Homeric epics, so I think these comparisons are relevant in a discussion about the Aeneid. Hopefully there are others who find these remarks useful, as well.

I understand that this is by no means the only approach to the Aeneid, and that some people would prefer to take the poem on its own terms. I sincerely hope that no one feels crowded out by the posts making comparisons with Homer, but I also hope that this line of discussion can continue.

[Petrarch's Love]

I always bristle when I hear that the Aeneid is merely a derivative. First of all, Homer was also working in a tradition of epics and because the others have not survived we don't know what Homer picked up from other epics and how much he derived. Second, there may not be a single Homer. It may be a conglamoration of oral poets, each aiding in the creation of masterpieces. Virgil is writing alone, not one to smooth out or edit rough spots. Third, Virgil is consciously using Homer as an allusion to add and contrast his epic, so there are reasons for paralleling Homer. Fourth the epic was the novel genre of their time. Just like today, we have a novel form, and centuries from now people will look back and see how similar our novels are, but we here today find it undiscernable.

OK Virgil... I'll take your word for it. Just kidding. Seriously... I think that a large part of the problem with Virgil is that his book is often read quite soon after one has read Homer in most World Literature Surveys. I think that someone listening the Brahm's 1st Symphony immediately after Beethoven 9th Symphony might feel a similar sense of the work being "derivative". But then Brahm's 1st is a brilliant work of original music and not a poor man's Beethoven. The same holds true of Virgil. In all honesty, most art builds upon the examples of the artist's predecessors. In some cases these borrowings are obvious... in other instances they are far more oblique. Perhaps we might ask why Virgil would think to structure his masterwork so closely upon such a well-known and honored example. If Virgil is building upon Homer perhaps it may be of some worth to examine just why and where these borrowings take place (beside the obvious)... and where and why Virgil deviates from this model? Of course... as a painter... I might add that I don't know if I would be all that offended if someone started comparing my paintings to Rembrandt's

Thanks for your thoughts on this. Just to clarify a little, I agree that the derivative nature of Virgil doesn't mean that one should dismiss it (which is why I fight my tendency to dismiss it ). Also, by "Homer", I just mean the two epics, Iliad and Odyssey, whoever or whatever the composer or composers of those poems were. When I say I tend to dismiss the Aeneid as derivative, I'm not talking about Virgil the writer, but the Aeneid itself; it's a statement about my opinion of the poems themselves, not a judgment of the achievement of the poets.

In my opinion, Virgil's dependence on Homer goes deeper than just some parallels and allusions. Sometimes I even get the feeling that Virgil is trying to out-Homer Homer (but that's probably just me). I agree that it was deliberate, and that it doesn't mean that Virgil was not creative. It seems like parodying the Greeks just appealed to the taste of the Romans in general.

Thought I'd jump in on this exchange. I'm responding to all similar posts on the topic, but only quote the above due to space concerns. I think (if Janine will forgive us ) that everyone's zeroing on an important and interesting question about the relationship between Virgil and his most famous predecessor, Homer. One of my advisers, who is a fairly well known scholar of epic literature, likes to start out his lectures on the Aeneid by saying that the first half is a replay of the Odyssey, and the second half is a replay of the Iliad. Of course my adviser is intentionally simplifying things a bit for effect, and of course there are many ways in which the Aeneid sets itself apart from the Homeric epics, but this is not actually such a bad way to begin thinking about it. (Before going further, since I know on these forums there are a wide range of ages and levels of reading experience I thought it might be helpful to quickly start off by pointing out that Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are primary or oral epics, which are generally considered to have emerged from an oral story telling tradition. By contrast Virgil's Aeneid is a secondary or literary epic, which means that it is a work that both comes after and is responding to an established written tradition. It's possible that we're touching a little here on a topic of debate that was rather popular among scholars near the turn of the 20th century as to whether there was something possibly more "authentic" about the primary epic. At any rate, just thought I should float those terms out there for people who may be reading and not have come across them before.)

One thing that may be going on in the discussion here is that our current age is one that tends to place a value on art relative to its originality. Our discussion about Virgil's use of Homeric material is starting out with the use of words like "copy" or "derivitive" that are making our Virg. bristle. I think for our culture there is a general sense that "copying" rather than inventing material from whole cloth is a negative thing, and so it is pretty common that people will see the type of adaptation that Virgil is doing in the Aeneid and feel there is something negative about the "copying" going on that needs to be either attacked or defended against. As I say, I think this is partly to do with a certain modern sensibility of art and creativity linked with originality. For example, I frequently find that people are surprised, and often even dismayed when they first discover that Shakespeare copied the stories and plots of most of his plays from other sources because it doesn't really align with a contemporary post romantic concept of originality being the defining feature of a great artist.

Both Virg. and St. Luke's talked a little bit above about Virgil referring back to Homer as a part of a tradition which he is adapting and changing in his own work. I certainly think this is a nice summation of what is going on, and there is no doubt that Virgil is doing something new of his own in a breathtaking fashion rather than just regurgitating Homer. However, I would like to take it one step further from simply saying that Virgil is alluding to the past example of Homer. BlueVictim makes an excellent point when he points to a sense that Virgil is trying to "out-Homer Homer." I think there is little doubt that Virgil was making a conscious effort both to imitate and to surpass Homer. He set out to do a version of both the Odyssey and the Iliad streamlined into a single work, rendered in the most elegant possible Latin verse, and aimed at illustrating the glory of both the Latin language and Rome itself. One reason for this was as a way of establishing that Latin literature could do as well as the illustrious Greeks. The Romans in general were very interested in both adapting and improving the strengths of the previously successful Greek culture and arts, and Virgil was certainly no exception to this.

Indeed, it was this aspect of Virgil that scholars and critics of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance were most interested in. The medieval terms translatio imperii (transfer or translation of empire) and translatio studii (transfer or translation of knowledge or culture) are useful for describing the Medieval/Renaissance view of Virgil. Translatio imperii refers to the theory that empire was transferred in a linear fashion through history beginning with the transfer of power from Greece to Rome. Closely associated with, and vitally important to this transfer of power was the transfer of culture or study (translatio studii). The idea is that one part of a successful empire is the successful translation of the artistic triumphs of the previous empire into the current empire (in the case of literature sometimes literally translation in the modern sense). In accordance with this view of history, scholars of the Renaissance saw one of Virgil’s great achievements being the way he copied Homer or, more precisely, the way he imitated Homer. Imitation, or the Latin term imitatio (which has slightly stronger connotations than the English term) was seen as a key component of artistic production. Rather than viewing imitation as a potential charge for lack of originality, Late Medieval and Renaissance scholars tended to view this as a successful transference of the power of Homer to the Latin language. Indeed, in the same way that Italy, France and England each vied to establish themselves as the next in the line of translatio imperii to inherit the power of the glory that was Rome, so the epic poets writing in Italian, French and English all did their best to imitate the Aeneid as a way of placing both themselves and their homeland as next in the line of translatio studii to inherit the glory that was Latin poetry. A significant portion of the amazing production of literature in the Renaissance period was spurred by the desire to out-Virgil Virgil in the same way that he had out-Homered Homer. Thus, in a previous time there was a deeply felt sense that successful art was not only unhindered by a direct imitation of previous works, but that on a profound level the success of art hinged on it being an imitation, sometimes even a near copy of a previous work, but translated (and if possible improved upon) for a new place and purpose. As I said above, I think this is a rather different philosophy about art and originality than the one we see most frequently in our own culture.

[Janine]

Petrarch's Love, I applaud your excellent explanation of this idea of one work suggesting another work, one work being basically derrived from a preceeding work; this whole notion of originality verses copying, as a concept looked on much differently in early literary works than it is in today's society. You layed out these ideas very well, making this concept clear, backing it up historically with examples such as Shakespeare's plays, and giving the contraversy full consideration, in order to put things into their proper perspective. Thanks so much for taking the time to write this very helpful post.

[Virgil]

I agree that Virgil did not merely copy Homer, and thanks for pointing out some important differences between the Aeneid and the Odyssey. I know I've already said this, but since it seems I'm being taken the wrong way, let me emphasize again that I don't mean to accuse Virgil of being an unskilled copycat.

I do think that he used a lot of Homeric material; he took that material and transformed it to serve his own purposes, but it was Homeric material nonetheless.

Blue, like i said before perhaps differently, Homer had a lot of "Homeric" material at hand. You assume that Homer's epics were the first, and mostly likly that is untrue. Such epics were the "novel" of its day, hundreds of these oral epics. And from what we've gathered they were all similar in nature. This is similar to how blues songs all work with similar material today. Virgil was working within the tradition of epic. Yes he's alluding to Homer, but there are other similar epics that constitute a form from which all epics are to be shaped. A great book on the subject is The Singer of Tales, by Albert Lord. Also check out studies by Milman Perry.

edit: I wrote the above before reading Petrach's post, and yes she presents a good literary understanding of Virgil and his tradition. What I find sometimes missing from the established literary critical approach is an understanding of how oral folklore, from which Homer was a part of and presumably not the first in that tradition, established the tradition and how it sythesized into a form. The Homeric epics were exclusively oral works. And the major distinction between Homer and Virgil is that Virgil is consciously writing an epic rather than singing one. The nature of constituting art from an illiterate, as Homer probably was, to a literate is dramatically different. Virgil has a synthesized form at hand and in the act of writing rather than singing uses and veers from the form as he consciously can, in the process of editing, do. Plus the epics of Homer were undoubtedly a reworking of other people's epics, even if Homer was a single person, which we don't know. If anyone has the opportunity to take a class roughly called Folklore and Literature, I highly recommend it. It completely changed the nature of how I look at literature and writers and writing. If not check out the works of Lord and Perry and other folklorists. I did two excellent papers (I got "A's" on them ) for that class, now that I remember. One on the evolving role of the hero and another on the evolving nature of Scotish oral ballads, in particular, "Sir Patrick Spence." Unfortunately those papers were before personal computers and I don't have them digitally to share.

[Virgil]

Let's get back to Book 1 of the Aeneid. There's one more thing I find interesting here, and that is Dido. We are first introduced to her. Venus, in disguise, tells Aeneas of Dido's history:

"What you see is a Punic Kingdom, people of Tyre
and Agenor's town, but the border's held by Libyans
hard to break in war. Phoenician Dido is in command,
she sailed from Tyre, in flight from her own brother.
Oh it's a long tale of crime, long, twisting, dark,
but I'll try to trace the high points in their order..."(l. 411-7)

And Venus goes on to tell the story of Dido was married to Sychaeus, "the richest man in Tyre" and how her brother Pygmalion, "a monster, the vilest man around" slaughtered Sychaeus for "lust [of his] gold". And Sychaeus comes back in a dream to Dido to warn her of her brother and to take flight.

"Driven by all this,
Dido plans her escape, collects her followers
fired by savage hate of the tyrant or bitter fear.
They seize some galleys set to sail, load them with gold--
the wealth Pygmalion craved--and they bear it overseas
and a woman leads them all. Reaching this haven here,
where now you will see the steep ramparts rising,
the new city of Carthage--the Tyrians purchased land as
large as a bull's-hide could enclose but cut in strips for size
and called it Byrsa, the Hide, for the spread they bought. (l. 437-48)

Two things I find interesting there. One that a woman can have such leadership ability in an ancient text. It's interesting to note that Roman women, while they did not hold office or command an army, had much more freedom than their Greek counterparts. And Virgil doesn't feel uncomfortable creating a strong female character. Second and more important is the parallel histroy that she has with Aeneas. Both are fleeing their home lands, albeit for dfferent reasons, and where some injustice has occured to them. Both have lost a spouse and are probably around middle age. And both have voyaged out searching for a new homeland. Another interesting thing that we keep coming across is the walls of a city. It seems as if Virgil is obssessed with it. The walls of Carthage, the walls of Alba Longa, the walls of Rome. And of course the torn walls of Troy.

Prior to meeting Dido, Aeneas comes across Dido's temple to Juno, where is spread in what I assume are reliefs a pictorial of the events of the Trojan War. Aeneas sees Achilles and Priam and Hector and even himself in various scenes. I find this interesting too. What's usually made of this is that the Trojan War has entered mythic history. What I find interesting is the pictorial representation. In the Illiad there is Achilles's shield that has a series of pictorial representations, but this sequence of reliefs (the pictorial history of a war or important event) seem much more a Roman art form rather than Greek. Perhaps someone can correct me there. This sort of representation would find it's most famous example in the pictorial representation of Trajan's victories over the Dacians, sculpted on Trajan's Arch of about a hundred years after Virgil.

And finally the first meeting of Dido and Aeneas is most interesting. Yes, Venus has Cupid induce her with love for Aeneas. But what I find interesting is that what she finds endearing of Aeneas is how he has suffered, the defeat at Troy and the burdens he has endured, not so much his triumphs or good looks. This strikes me as a very mature sort of love, where she sees the humanity inside him. I also find interesting that when she asks him to recite his history and that of Troy:

...So Dido, doomed,
was lengthening out the night by trading tales
as she drank long draughts of love--asking Aeneas
question on question, now about Priam, now Hector,
what armor Memnon, son of Morning, wore at Troy,
how swift were the horses od Diomedes? How strong was Acilles?
"Wait, come, my guest," she urges, "tell us your own story,
start to finish--the ambush laid by the Greeks, the pain
your people suffered, the wanderings you have faced.
For now is the seventh summer that has borne you
wandering all the lands and seas on earth." (l. 898-908)

What i find interesting there is that all she mentions are things that men would be interested, of armor and horses and ambushes and wanderings. No question of how beautiful Helen was or what type of dress she wore, or Andromache's love for Hector. The only femine question is that of the pain of suffering, but that's not necessarily femine. Is this Virgil losing sight of a female character or is Dido so masculanized by the fact that she is a leader of a city that she has masculine interests? I don't know. I tend to think Vigil misses it here, but we the reader must accept what the author creates as if he were perfect.

Next onto Book 2 for me. Let me just say that Book 2 is my favorite of all The Aeneid. In the past it has literally brought tears to my eyes, and I don't tear very easy from literature. And I just glanced into Fagles's Book 2 and already my eyes were watering. So stay tuned.

[bluevictim]

Blue, like i said before perhaps differently, Homer had a lot of "Homeric" material at hand. You assume that Homer's epics were the first, and mostly likly that is untrue. Such epics were the "novel" of its day, hundreds of these oral epics. And from what we've gathered they were all similar in nature. This is similar to how blues songs all work with similar material today. Virgil was working within the tradition of epic. Yes he's alluding to Homer, but there are other similar epics that constitute a form from which all epics are to be shaped. A great book on the subject is The Singer of Tales, by Albert Lord. Also check out studies by Milman Perry.

edit: I wrote the above before reading Petrach's post, and yes she presents a good literary understanding of Virgil and his tradition. What I find sometimes missing from the established literary critical approach is an understanding of how oral folklore, from which Homer was a part of and presumably not the first in that tradition, established the tradition and how it sythesized into a form. The Homeric epics were exclusively oral works. And the major distinction between Homer and Virgil is that Virgil is consciously writing an epic rather than singing one. The nature of constituting art from an illiterate, as Homer probably was, to a literate is dramatically different. Virgil has a synthesized form at hand and in the act of writing rather than singing uses and veers from the form as he consciously can, in the process of editing, do. Plus the epics of Homer were undoubtedly a reworking of other people's epics, even if Homer was a single person, which we don't know. If anyone has the opportunity to take a class roughly called Folklore and Literature, I highly recommend it. It completely changed the nature of how I look at literature and writers and writing. If not check out the works of Lord and Perry and other folklorists. I did two excellent papers (I got "A's" on them ) for that class, now that I remember. One on the evolving role of the hero and another on the evolving nature of Scotish oral ballads, in particular, "Sir Patrick Spence." Unfortunately those papers were before personal computers and I don't have them digitally to share.

I'm sorry that I did not make this clear, but I did not mean to make any assertion about the originality of the Homeric epics (and I'm unable to figure out where you think I made the assumption that the Homeric epics were the first). For my part, I seem to be misunderstanding what you mean with your comparison to novels and the tradition in which Virgil was working in. At first I thought that you were saying Virgil's similarities to Homer are not much more significant than one novel's (say War and Peace) similarities to another (say Les Miserables), but maybe what you meant to say was that Virgil was borrowing from the whole tradition of which the Homeric epics were merely one (or two) of hundreds, so saying that Virgil is derivative of Homer would be like saying Steinbeck is derivative of Dickens when Steinbeck is no more derivative of Dickens than of Austen.

In any case, I thought I'd expand a little on these thoughts to try to make them clearer, and maybe there are actually other people besides me who are interested in these things (you never know ).

First, here's an oversimplified summary for those who are unfamiliar with the work of Lord and Parry. For a while, it was popular to explain some of the problems in the Homeric epics by postulating that they were the result of sewing together many smaller existing poems, like a quilt. In the '30s, Parry found that the problems were better explained by understanding the Iliad and the Odyssey to be composed of pre-made formulas, phrases of various length designed to fit the metrical structure, kind of like a model made of Lego. He also reasoned that these formulas (the Lego bricks) were so numerous and well developed that they could not have been produced by any one poet, but they must have been the result of a well established oral tradition. Thus, the Homeric epics were not "original" because the basic formulas were pre-made, and longer passages were probably reused as well (in the Lego analogy, "Homer" may have made the tires of his Lego car the same way that others made their tires). Parry later studied living Serbian oral poets and found a lot of further evidence to support his theory and also some additional insights. His work was continued by Lord, and their results have influenced Homeric studies ever since.

So, that's a basic picture of the situation around the 8th century BC (poets composing orally from a body of pre-made formulas). In the 7th and 6th centuries, the oral tradition from which the Homeric epics sprang basically died out. By the 5th century, the Homeric epics had been recorded in writing, and Homer was The Poet (definitely not one of hundreds all alike), and from that point on, every Greek poet was influenced by Homer. Other epic poems were preserved, but none of them came close to the Homeric epics in reputation.

All of this is to say that there is a real sense in which the Aeneid, which wasn't written until the first century BC, is derivative from the Homeric epics. Virgil was definitely not working in Homer's epic tradition, and I highly doubt that Virgil's Homericisms were meant to recall any other than the Homeric epics (but of course the Aeneid borrows from other sources as well, to a much lesser degree). The borrowing from Homer of Virgil was completely unlike the borrowing of Homer from the oral epic tradition. In fact, Parry explicitly ruled out the kind of deliberate borrowing that Virgil engaged in from his definition of 'formula'. Like I said, every Greek poem was borrowing from Homer as well, but in my opinion, the Aeneid's imitation was even more blatant than those.

Anyways, I'm sorry that this post was more about Homer than about the Aeneid. Since the topic of Homer's oral tradition came up, I thought I'd give it a fuller expression and try to relate it to the discussion here about the Aeneid, in case anybody out there might find it interesting.

[bluevictim]

Two things I find interesting there. One that a woman can have such leadership ability in an ancient text. It's interesting to note that Roman women, while they did not hold office or command an army, had much more freedom than their Greek counterparts. And Virgil doesn't feel uncomfortable creating a strong female character.

In this regard, it may be interesting to compare and (perhaps mostly) contrast Dido with Aeschylus' Clytemnestra and Euripides' Medea, two Greek "manly" women in serious literature, and Aristophanes' Lysistrata. In Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Clytemnestra is clearly in charge of Agamemnon's house, even though Aigisthos was around, and she is the one who kills Agamemnon. In Euripides' Medea, we find Medea making many of the claims on Jason typically reserved for men in terms of oaths-keeping and honor. In Aristophanes' Lysistrata, the women, led by Lysistrata, are sick of war and decide to go on sexual strike to get the men to end it (and they succeed). It's also interesting that the last picture described on the wall of the temple, just before Aeneas sees Dido, is Penthesileia and her Amazon warriors.

Prior to meeting Dido, Aeneas comes across Dido's temple to Juno, where is spread in what I assume are reliefs a pictorial of the events of the Trojan War. Aeneas sees Achilles and Priam and Hector and even himself in various scenes.

A couple of details about Rhesus and Troilus may shed some light on Virgil's choice of scenes to include. It was prophesied that Troy would not fall if the horses of Rhesus crops the grass of Troy and drinks from the river Xanthus. It was also prophesied that if Troilus lives to twenty then Troy would not fall (he didn't make it to twenty because Achilles killed him).

And finally the first meeting of Dido and Aeneas is most interesting. Yes, Venus has Cupid induce her with love for Aeneas.

The romance between Aeneas and Dido is reminiscent of the romance between Jason and Medea in Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica. In that epic, Aphrodite (Venus) gets Eros (Cupid) to make Medea fall in love with Jason to help him with his heroic quest.

But what I find interesting is that what she finds endearing of Aeneas is how he has suffered, the defeat at Troy and the burdens he has endured, not so much his triumphs or good looks. This strikes me as a very mature sort of love, where she sees the humanity inside him. I also find interesting that when she asks him to recite his history and that of Troy:

Another aspect of Dido that I find very complicated is how Virgil seems to portray her rather sympathetically, but I also find this section to be full of irony, especially in light of the hostile relationship between Rome and Carthage.

For example, Aeneas finds solace (lines 450-453) at the temple of Juno, while beguiled by the depictions of scenes from the Trojan war. The temple, that is, of the very goddess that has it in for him! (perhaps he doesn't know whose temple it is) And the scenes are the scenes of the destruction of Troy, which build up in cruelty to the climax of Hector's corpse being dragged around the the city walls three times (even worse than in the Iliad). A hint of the hostility between the Romans and the Carthaginians can be seen when the missing Trojans arrive and reveal that the Carthaginians were burning their ships.

On the other hand the story of Dido's past seems to make her a sympathetic character, and her kingdom seems to be well ordered and successful despite hardship. Indeed, Dido treats Aeneas and his men very well (albeit that is partially due to the machinations of Venus) and sympathizes with his plight.

[Petrarch's Love]

Blue, like i said before perhaps differently, Homer had a lot of "Homeric" material at hand. You assume that Homer's epics were the first, and mostly likly that is untrue. Such epics were the "novel" of its day, hundreds of these oral epics. And from what we've gathered they were all similar in nature. This is similar to how blues songs all work with similar material today. Virgil was working within the tradition of epic. Yes he's alluding to Homer, but there are other similar epics that constitute a form from which all epics are to be shaped. A great book on the subject is The Singer of Tales, by Albert Lord. Also check out studies by Milman Perry.

edit: I wrote the above before reading Petrach's post, and yes she presents a good literary understanding of Virgil and his tradition. What I find sometimes missing from the established literary critical approach is an understanding of how oral folklore, from which Homer was a part of and presumably not the first in that tradition, established the tradition and how it sythesized into a form. The Homeric epics were exclusively oral works. And the major distinction between Homer and Virgil is that Virgil is consciously writing an epic rather than singing one. The nature of constituting art from an illiterate, as Homer probably was, to a literate is dramatically different...

Virg.--Thanks for bringing up a little more on the differences between the oral and the literary epic and rightly pointing out that Homer himself was not entirely "original" either. I don't quite understand why you think the established literary approach leaves out the consideration of oral folklore in relation to Homer, since the oral roots of epic is usually where any good professor would begin a course on epic literature, and certainly there has been a great deal of literary criticism written regarding folktales and oral tradition. My post above didn't really touch on that because I thought everyone was more interested in what Virgil was doing with Homer rather than where Homer had come from, not because I didn't think the synthesis of the Homeric epic was important. Anyway, it seems that Blue is also familiar with some theories of Homeric origins and has given a nice little summation of the Parry-Lord oral theory, so I think we can safely assume now that everyone's on the same page and proceed to discuss Book I in more depth. (That is, unless anyone is really interested in further discussion regarding the differences between the type of adaptation going on in Homer versus the type of adaptation being undertaken by Virgil.)

Petrarch's Love, I applaud your excellent explanation of this idea of one work suggesting another work, one work being basically derrived from a preceeding work; this whole notion of originality verses copying, as a concept looked on much differently in early literary works than it is in today's society. You layed out these ideas very well, making this concept clear, backing it up historically with examples such as Shakespeare's plays, and giving the contraversy full consideration, in order to put things into their proper perspective. Thanks so much for taking the time to write this very helpful post.

Janine--Thanks. I'm glad the post was helpful to you.

Let's get back to Book 1 of the Aeneid. There's one more thing I find interesting here, and that is Dido.

Yes indeed, back to Book 1 with us! I'd love to discuss Dido some more, and looks like you and Blue already have some good observations going, but I must get some rest for now and post on the morrow...

[Virgil]

I'm sorry that I did not make this clear, but I did not mean to make any assertion about the originality of the Homeric epics (and I'm unable to figure out where you think I made the assumption that the Homeric epics were the first). For my part, I seem to be misunderstanding what you mean with your comparison to novels and the tradition in which Virgil was working in. At first I thought that you were saying Virgil's similarities to Homer are not much more significant than one novel's (say War and Peace) similarities to another (say Les Miserables), but maybe what you meant to say was that Virgil was borrowing from the whole tradition of which the Homeric epics were merely one (or two) of hundreds, so saying that Virgil is derivative of Homer would be like saying Steinbeck is derivative of Dickens when Steinbeck is no more derivative of Dickens than of Austen.

Well, I'm saying both, now that you made me think of the distinction. Virgil is emulating the epic form like novelists are emulating the novel form. But also Virgil is using a very specific type of epic (actually two types) a journey epic and a war epic, like like a historical novelists uses a particular type of novel form or a bildingsroman uses a particular type of novel form. The forms are there in the culture.

First, here's an oversimplified summary for those who are unfamiliar with the work of Lord and Parry. For a while, it was popular to explain some of the problems in the Homeric epics by postulating that they were the result of sewing together many smaller existing poems, like a quilt. In the '30s, Parry found that the problems were better explained by understanding the Iliad and the Odyssey to be composed of pre-made formulas, phrases of various length designed to fit the metrical structure, kind of like a model made of Lego. He also reasoned that these formulas (the Lego bricks) were so numerous and well developed that they could not have been produced by any one poet, but they must have been the result of a well established oral tradition. Thus, the Homeric epics were not "original" because the basic formulas were pre-made, and longer passages were probably reused as well (in the Lego analogy, "Homer" may have made the tires of his Lego car the same way that others made their tires). Parry later studied living Serbian oral poets and found a lot of further evidence to support his theory and also some additional insights. His work was continued by Lord, and their results have influenced Homeric studies ever since.

So, that's a basic picture of the situation around the 8th century BC (poets composing orally from a body of pre-made formulas). In the 7th and 6th centuries, the oral tradition from which the Homeric epics sprang basically died out. By the 5th century, the Homeric epics had been recorded in writing, and Homer was The Poet (definitely not one of hundreds all alike), and from that point on, every Greek poet was influenced by Homer. Other epic poems were preserved, but none of them came close to the Homeric epics in reputation.

Oh I'm glad you're familiar with Lord and Perry. There is more to the oral tradition and folklore than just the formulaic passages. Oral tradition also incorporates form and story and plot. Just look at how similar joke forms are. Anyway, my point is that Homer had the plot and story line already at hand from other oral epics. There wasn't just one epic about the Trojan war with the characters of Odysseus and Achilles and so forth, but dozens. Homer, if there was only one Homer, which is indispute, had various plots and character formations and events and scenes already created for him. He perhpas chose which to put in, and perhaps vary. No different than Virgil. So those that say that Virgil is derivative (and i guess this discussion started when you mentioned the often commented issue that Virgil is derivative) must acknowledge that Homer was probably even more derivative from his culture.

All of this is to say that there is a real sense in which the Aeneid, which wasn't written until the first century BC, is derivative from the Homeric epics. Virgil was definitely not working in Homer's epic tradition, and I highly doubt that Virgil's Homericisms were meant to recall any other than the Homeric epics (but of course the Aeneid borrows from other sources as well, to a much lesser degree). The borrowing from Homer of Virgil was completely unlike the borrowing of Homer from the oral epic tradition.

Are you saying that there were no epics of the Trojan war with the Trojan characters before Homer? If you're saying that, I completely disagree.

In fact, Parry explicitly ruled out the kind of deliberate borrowing that Virgil engaged in from his definition of 'formula'.

Absolutely. Again I'm not talking about formulaic phrasings, but of story and characters.

[Virgil]

In this regard, it may be interesting to compare and (perhaps mostly) contrast Dido with Aeschylus' Clytemnestra and Euripides' Medea, two Greek "manly" women in serious literature, and Aristophanes' Lysistrata. In Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Clytemnestra is clearly in charge of Agamemnon's house, even though Aigisthos was around, and she is the one who kills Agamemnon. In Euripides' Medea, we find Medea making many of the claims on Jason typically reserved for men in terms of oaths-keeping and honor. In Aristophanes' Lysistrata, the women, led by Lysistrata, are sick of war and decide to go on sexual strike to get the men to end it (and they succeed). It's also interesting that the last picture described on the wall of the temple, just before Aeneas sees Dido, is Penthesileia and her Amazon warriors.

Good points. None of those women however actually lead nations or cities, but they are strong women.

Another aspect of Dido that I find very complicated is how Virgil seems to portray her rather sympathetically, but I also find this section to be full of irony, especially in light of the hostile relationship between Rome and Carthage.

For example, Aeneas finds solace (lines 450-453) at the temple of Juno, while beguiled by the depictions of scenes from the Trojan war. The temple, that is, of the very goddess that has it in for him! (perhaps he doesn't know whose temple it is) And the scenes are the scenes of the destruction of Troy, which build up in cruelty to the climax of Hector's corpse being dragged around the the city walls three times (even worse than in the Iliad). A hint of the hostility between the Romans and the Carthaginians can be seen when the missing Trojans arrive and reveal that the Carthaginians were burning their ships.

On the other hand the story of Dido's past seems to make her a sympathetic character, and her kingdom seems to be well ordered and successful despite hardship. Indeed, Dido treats Aeneas and his men very well (albeit that is partially due to the machinations of Venus) and sympathizes with his plight.

Yes, that crossed my mind too. If Virgil is simply using Dido as a stand in for the Carthaginians, he has to make them a worthy adversary. They did push the Romans to the point of extinction. A fighter beating an amateur is no big deal; but a fighter beating a champion is a glorious victory. So the Carthginians have to be seen as well ordered and tough. I think I quoted a line where the Lybians were strong soldiers or something to that effect. On the other hand Virgil is also faced with the need to have Aeneas fall in love with Dido and so be deterred from his mission. So Dido has to be sympathetic too.

[Virgil]

Virg.--Thanks for bringing up a little more on the differences between the oral and the literary epic and rightly pointing out that Homer himself was not entirely "original" either. I don't quite understand why you think the established literary approach leaves out the consideration of oral folklore in relation to Homer, since the oral roots of epic is usually where any good professor would begin a course on epic literature, and certainly there has been a great deal of literary criticism written regarding folktales and oral tradition.

Well, you know how anti-establishment I am.

[bluevictim]

Well, I'm saying both, now that you made me think of the distinction. Virgil is emulating the epic form like novelists are emulating the novel form. But also Virgil is using a very specific type of epic (actually two types) a journey epic and a war epic, like like a historical novelists uses a particular type of novel form or a bildingsroman uses a particular type of novel form. The forms are there in the culture.

...

Oh I'm glad you're familiar with Lord and Perry. There is more to the oral tradition and folklore than just the formulaic passages. Oral tradition also incorporates form and story and plot. Just look at how similar joke forms are.

Thanks for clarifying. It seems like you are saying that the parallels between the Aeneid and the Homeric epics are merely the result of Virgil using folk motifs, or that Virgil was drawing from the same oral tradition that the Homeric epics came from. I think that the dependence of Virgil on the Homeric epics is of a completely different nature. The specificity and the extensiveness of the parallels, and the uniqueness of Homer's position in (and well before) Virgil's time make me believe that Virgil was deliberately and specifically using the Homeric epics (and that he intended for his readers to think of the Homeric epics), and Homer's oral tradition did not last to the time of Virgil. But I guess I'm pretty much just repeating myself now.

So those that say that Virgil is derivative (and i guess this discussion started when you mentioned the often commented issue that Virgil is derivative) must acknowledge that Homer was probably even more derivative from his culture.

Fair enough, but I don't think the question of which work is "more derivative" is very meaningful because the nature of the derivation is completely different (in my opinion), and I'm not sure I understand how this contest relates to the Aeneid.

Homer, if there was only one Homer, which is indispute, ...
Are you saying that there were no epics of the Trojan war with the Trojan characters before Homer? If you're saying that, I completely disagree.

There must be something I'm missing (and it would be no surprise because I'm pretty dense ) because I don't see the relevance of the question of whether or not there was a single "Homer", and I don't know how I can be more clear than to explicitly say (as I have done) that I am not claiming that the Homeric epics were first or anything at all about the originality of Homer.

Maybe part of the confusion is from my habit of using 'Homer' interchangeably with 'the Homeric epics' as shorthand for 'the Iliad and the Odyssey'. I don't mean to say anything about the authorship of the Iliad and the Odyssey when I say things like "Virgil knows Homer well" -- it's just much easier to type than "Virgil knows the Iliad and the Odyssey well".

[quasimodo1]

Family, State and the Gods in the Aeneid.....after a

review of the postings so far, I have to compliment

Virgil (of litnet fame) for an intimate understanding

of the Aeneid that eludes me...so far. I want to

thank Dori for the link to the A.S.Kline translation;

the Dryden seems so stilted by comparison.

Bluevictim addendum of the legends and also the

innate power of the women in this epic to have

such great influence on events. That being said,

the theme of interest for me...perhaps a more

subtle point... is the relationship between the great

families, the power and position of the city-states

and how the gods interact with both. For me, it's

impossible to read Virgil (or Homer or Xenophon)

without consciously leaving modern assumptions at

the door. It is just as difficult to read the Aeneid

without some understanding of the history and

timelines of this era. A new consideration is that

the various gods, their assistance, interferance or

apathy towards the families, individuals and the

state...I now regard their part as not substratum but

as the one thing both the powerfull players and the

individual city-states have in common; these gods

are always available to explain the untenable or to

be the catalysts for changes and shifts in plot

otherwise impossible. Although Homer's gods were

there to help or hinder...his gods seem more aloof.

For anyone trying to get a fix on the history of this

era, here are some useful links...

http://www.livius.org/pb-pem/pelopon...r/war_t11.html.



http://library.thinkquest.org/22866/...h/Legende.html.



http://library.thinkquest.org/22866/.../Tijdlijn.html.



http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/hero/hd_hero.htm.



http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/angk/hd_angk.htm. http://www.argyrosargyrou.fsnet.co.uk/Myths4.htm

[Virgil]

Thanks for clarifying. It seems like you are saying that the parallels between the Aeneid and the Homeric epics are merely the result of Virgil using folk motifs, or that Virgil was drawing from the same oral tradition that the Homeric epics came from. I think that the dependence of Virgil on the Homeric epics is of a completely different nature. The specificity and the extensiveness of the parallels, and the uniqueness of Homer's position in (and well before) Virgil's time make me believe that Virgil was deliberately and specifically using the Homeric epics (and that he intended for his readers to think of the Homeric epics), and Homer's oral tradition did not last to the time of Virgil. But I guess I'm pretty much just repeating myself now.

Yes, yes, yes. I'm sorry. I guess I wasn't making myself clear. And I agree that Virgil is copying Homer in a different fashion that Homer is working within the oral tradition.

Fair enough, but I don't think the question of which work is "more derivative" is very meaningful because the nature of the derivation is completely different (in my opinion), and I'm not sure I understand how this contest relates to the Aeneid.

Yes, I agree, that's why I bristled when you alluded to Virgil being derivative.

There must be something I'm missing (and it would be no surprise because I'm pretty dense ) because I don't see the relevance of the question of whether or not there was a single "Homer", and I don't know how I can be more clear than to explicitly say (as I have done) that I am not claiming that the Homeric epics were first or anything at all about the originality of Homer.

No I just bristled and that's how this exchange started. We can move on.

[bluevictim]

We can move on.

Sounds good.

Good points. None of those women however actually lead nations or cities, but they are strong women.

One thing that is common with these "manly" women is that their "manliness" is something to be repulsed by, and in the case of Lysistrata, laughed at -- even Penthesileia and the Amazons serve more as a object for astonishment than for emulation. Like you, and, I imagine, many other readers, I feel that Virgil has made Dido quite admirable -- quite a contrast with the other ancient "manly" women. I wonder if these feelings are anachronistic; perhaps Virgil didn't intend for Dido to be as admirable as we are taking her. Your point that Roman women enjoy more freedom than their Greek counterparts is interesting, and maybe Virgil's audience would find a woman with male power admirable. On the other hand, Dido's story would probably remind them of Cleopatra, another woman with male power who caused harm by seducing a Roman (although I guess we're not at the "causing harm by seducing" part of the Dido story yet).

On the other hand Virgil is also faced with the need to have Aeneas fall in love with Dido and so be deterred from his mission. So Dido has to be sympathetic too.

It makes sense that the woman Aeneas falls in love with should be a worthy woman, but it seems to me that it is kind of circular as an explanation for why Virgil made a sympathetic queen of Carthage. After all, the need to have Aeneas fall in love with Dido was created by Virgil in the first place. He could have come up with a scenario more like the model of Calypso ensnaring Odysseus against his will, for example. As far as I know the episode with Dido doesn't follow any well known legend in Virgil's time, so he wasn't under any pressure from tradition to have Aeneas fall in love with Dido.

For anyone trying to get a fix on the history of this
era, here are some useful links...

Thanks for the links! I haven't had a chance to go through all of them yet but they definitely look very useful.