Help! I am struggling with World Lit right now... does anyone know the purpose of Virgil's Aeneid? What is the "Roman dream"? and how does it differ from Homer's "Warrior cult" in the Iliad and Odyssey?
2006-10-04 09:15:39 · 2 answers · asked by kb27787 2 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Books & Authors
Virgil was a poet about the time of the end of the Roman Republic, when Julius Caesar was assassinated. He was recruited by Augustus, Caesar's adopted son and heir, to write the Aeneid as a propagandist justification for the dictator-like regime which Augustus was then fashioning. The first 6 chapters of this epic poem follow Homer's tradition of the Odyssey, i.e., a travelogue-quest, but then change into Aeneas' legendary founding of ancient Rome and thereby the supposed ancestor of Caesar and Augustus, providing legitimacy for the Emperor-ship to follow.
The later part of the Aeneid resembles the llliad, which is a story about revenge and retribution for the abduction of Agamemnon's wife, Helen by the Trojan Paris. The similarity to the Iliad is that Aeneid, now leading the Trojans, is fighting the local tribe for Lavinia, daughter of the king Latinus against her betrothed fiance. So the fight is again over a woman.
The Roman dream refers to Aeneas's descent into the Underworld at Cumae, where he learns of the prophecy that he will found the great nation of Rome.
2006-10-05 23:35:27 · answer #1 · answered by hellbent 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
no clue sorry
2006-10-04 16:40:02 · answer #2 · answered by vick 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋