R.J. Tarrant

R.J. Tarrant

1. Virgil

   • “Virgil’s fusion of mythological epic and poetry on themes from Roman history are unique”
   • “Virgil seems at first an unlikely prospect as a political writer. "
   • “ Augustus ensured the Aeneid’s survival by overruling Virgil’s dying wish to have it burned.”
   • “In philosophical terms, Virgil’s viewpoint combines an Aristotelian acceptance of anger with a Stoic’s horror of anger and of its effects on those influenced.”

2. Aeneas

   • “However strongly Aeneas may be likened to Augustus, he never becomes simply his heroic equivalent …e.g his affair with Dido- he subjects himself shamefully to a foreign queen, which reminds readers of Antony’s involvement with Cleopatra."

3. Augustus

   • “It is appropriate that Augustus is seen in an ambivalent light, for Virgil could appreciate the very different figure Augustus had chosen to become (from his bloody youth), and could make him the instrument of a real, if troubled, hope.

4. Propaganda

   • “Contemporary events are explicit in the Aeneid e.g the Battle of Actium on Aeneas' shield."
   • “The action is set in the heroic past but is narrated from present viewpoint. At three points a prophetic vision reveals events that lie far in Aeneas’ future but which belonged to the past of Virgil’s audience "
   • "To see signs in Virgil of an ambivalent or even a pessimistic outlook is not to read it anachronistically"
   • "pessimistic readings have origins in the poem’s conception of human nature."
   • "An optimistic view highlights the hopes for renewal and stability raised by Augustus ."
   • "Virgil’s optimism is linked to his pride in Rome and his hopes for its future.”
   • " an Anti-Augustan reading is really a sense of quiet despair, a Virgil's private lack of faith in the positive vision of Rome”
   • "a scholar’s political context has a huge impact on whether they view the Aeneid optimistically or pessimistically."

5. Furor

   • “the last image in the poem is not victory or peace, but the furious rage in which Aeneas exacts vengeance for Pallas’ death.”

6. Prophecy

   • “prophecies (1, 6, 8) illustrate a technique Virgil employs to incorporate an Augustan outlook without making it appear simply his own"
   • "the prophecies' functions are to heighten Aeneas’ confidence in his mission's success. This helps to account for the nature of these visions, which might appear merely propagandistic outside their poetic context.”

7. War

   • "Trojans vs Latins war is shown in a Homeric light as Virgil’s counterpart to the Iliad"
   • "the conflict evokes Rome’s civil wars."