Nicole Tschida ENG 210 3-31-18 The Aeneid, The Confessions, and The Spiritual Journey The Homeric epic often foretells of a long perilous journey filled with warfare and trials of the human condition that coincides with the spiritual journey that each human being has to take. How are The Aeneid and The Confessions similar in that they both depict warfare and a long spiritual journey? In The Aeneid, Aeneas’ journey is filled with many trials and temptations both physical as well as spiritual. Aeneas is seen as a model of piety, but he is living in a sinful relationship with his mistress Dido, the queen of Carthage. In The Confessions, St. Augustine tells of his spiritual journey from his adolescence when he had no interest in virtue or Christianity …show more content…
The Aeneid, as well as The Inferno, depict hell as a place where there are multiple levels and where sins are punished differently depending on the degree of severity, the evilest of sins receiving the worst punishments. Virgil like Dante portrays an afterlife in which people are awarded for their deeds. This kind of belief would have been prominent in a character like Aeneas, he would have believed that his deeds would have been justly rewarded in the afterlife. While he most likely did not have the same set of values and virtues that St. Augustine later had after his conversion he did live by a code of honor or a set of values that pertained to his time and culture. The virtue he possessed that motivated him to establish a new home in modern day Rome was one of honor, which was very important to ancient civilizations, both greek and Trojans alike. To them virtue meant having honor, this is how they lived their spiritual journey. The journey that Aeneas takes in book six shows that the ancient cultures of the Greeks, Trojans, and Romans had a concept or understanding of the afterlife that influenced their moral decisions and values. They believed much like Christians that the good would be rewarded and the evil would be punished. While what they believed to be virtuous is different than what we as Christians believe, they like the character Aeneas still …show more content…
No matter the degree of sin each of us commits we are estranged from God to some capacity. It is common for the human person to fall prey to the approval of the world and forget or ignore God, who loves us despite the numerous times we reject Him. He even states how he remembers in his youth that he had wept for Dido for committing suicide because of love (The Confessions by St. Augustine, book 1), but he didn't weep for his own sins and transgressions for God. He could empathize with the tragic plight of a character in a book, but he didn't or couldn't recognize his own tragedy. I think it's all too common for a person to see the faults in someone else and feel sorrow for them, but at the same time, they are unable to acknowledge their own faults and get to the root of their sin. The Aeneid, as well as The Confessions both, have a spiritual journey that hero of the story undertakes, both Aeneas and Augustine have to look at their past to change their future. Aeneas journey is to found Rome and Augustine’s journey is to convert to Christianity. While one journey can be seen as told from the physical side and the other the spiritual side, both journeys involve constant battles and face a long journey that deals with both the physical world as well as the spiritual
Aeneas exemplifies the ideal of Stoicism by practicing the cardinal virtues in his daily life.
The Odyssey, the characters in the epic display a variety of virtues such as bravery, loyalty, courage, and cunning, but also vices such as pride and disloyalty that convey contradicting views of virtues compared to the ideas in the modern world. In Homer’s
We see this in the epic increasingly present when Aeneas receives oracles or talks with his dad. These people remind him of his destiny and reset him on the path that he began on. So as you can see much of what Aeneas sees as honorable comes from what the gods what him to do, as this was common during this time. It would be similar to someone using a Judeo-Christian model to say what is honorable and what is not in today’s world.
Aeneas being a decedent from Troy and thus is he seen as an associate of the royal house of Troy. In the Iliad Aeneas is an important warrior in the Trojan war. However, Aeneas most significant role is through Virgil’s Aeneid, where Virgil made the arrival and settlement of Aeneas in Italy the main theme in his story. Aeneas was born near to tear, on mount Ida, he was given to his father Archallis at the age of five. During the Trojan war he lead the troops of Dardanian, but still under Hectors demands.
Different but Similar Both Homers’ epic, the Odyssey, and Aeschylus’ tragic trilogy, the Oresteia, tell the story of Agamemnon and what led to his doomed death. Both the poem and the play are similar in their plots except for few differences in their significance, presentation and details. This shows how flexible ancient myth is and how it can adapt to suit a particular author and audience. Agamemnons’ death in the Odyssey is a very good example of how people can be, through their own foolishness, bring destruction upon themselves. It also serves as an example of an epic hero failing to return home, which is known as nostos, thus for Odysseus, the epic hero, it delivers a foil for the successful voyage back to his home, Ithaca.
As Aeneas’ main antagonist, she is first introduced as embittered by a “sharp / and savage hurt, [that] had not yet left her spirit.” (Book I, 39-40). The goddess hates the Trojans because of the judgment of Paris and Jupiter’s ravishment of Ganymede, and she is determined to stop Aeneas from founding Rome. Virgil’s use of “savage” when presenting Juno reflects the unruliness of her emotions and how they have plagued her spirit and mind. Controlled by her passions, Juno’s first act in the Aeneid is the introduction of an element of disorder that serves as the contrast to politics: “Then- burning, pondering-
Madison McDonald Dr. Travis Montgomery ENGL 2213-02 16 March 2018 Violence in The Aeneid The Aeneid is bursting with violent acts from the beginning to the end. The main character, Aeneas, constantly faces conflict from both humans and gods. Aeneas is a Trojan hero and prince who embodies pietas, driven by duty, honor, and devotion, which makes him an example of an ideal Roman citizen. Aeneas was called by the gods and determined to be a successful founder of Rome, but he faced complications along the journey. In each conflict along the way, Aeneas dealt with fighting and violence and could not find peace until the end.
The continual decrease in birth rates was an alarming indicator of a decreasing elite class and of the depravity and adultery that plagued the Roman upper classes. Augustus believed that Rome’s long- term survival required adult citizens to produce more children but he did not want to deem this task up to individual conscience (wiki). These new laws which played a central role in the roman family unit for the next three centuries, absorbed and elevated the traditional power of the father figure in a Roman household. Created by Virgil the ancestral Roman hero Aeneas became an icon of Roman pietas or respect. He is often depicted escaping Troy with his father on his back and his son close at hand; The family man who looks back respectfully to the past generation and fights to secure the honor of the next (WoR).
In the Bible and Virgil’s The Aeneid, the pursuit of honor and glory is complex, and it does not come without serious consequences and hardships. However, while Jesus and Aeneas both strive to achieve a certain goal due to divine intervention and both overcome certain adversities, their underlying motives and their ultimate outcomes are starkly different. Although it would appear that neither Jesus nor Aeneas would be motivated by personal fame or glory—as they were sent on godly missions, this is not the case in The Aeneid. Jesus acts completely selflessly as he teaches others about the Kingdom of God and how to live their lives, whereas Aeneas is working to win greatness for his ancestors as he was sent by the gods to settle and create an
Literary epics, including the Aeneid, typically have a very poetic and lyrical sense of style in the writing that go hand in hand with the other characteristics of epics such as supernatural forces, the actions of superhuman strength, and a hero or heroine. Authors of epics, for example the Aeneid, the Iliad, and the Odyssey, often include several different themes and lessons that the reader can learn from reading the stories. The themes and lessons vary from simple moral beliefs to psychological behavior. Most themes, however, have to do with the way humans act and human nature. In the Aeneid, one theme that deals with human nature is the idea that strong sentiments or feelings between people or towards situations can overwhelm a person and
When the poet Virgil wrote the national epic The Aeneid between 29 and 19 BC, all written works and conduits for creative expression were monitored by Roman ruler Augustus Caesar – a real-life contention between passion and control. Throughout the excerpt on pages 139 and 140 of Fagle’s translation (which covers themes such as fate, the gods, and divine intervention, and piety), Virgil explores the underlying theme of conflict between desire and duty, emotion, and reason. Exploring irony, the comparison of Dido and Aeneas’ traits, and pietas being a decision, Virgil shows Aeneas to be a flawed, enigmatic epic Roman hero who personifies the human conflict – passion versus control – of the Aeneid and the Roman empire itself. To begin with, it’s
Creusa describes life after death to be filled with nothing but joy, splendor, happiness, while Achilles’ feels life after death to be gloomy and dreadful. They both however, make reference to the gods in their visits to their loved ones. Creusa explains to her husband that, “fates permit me not from hence to fly; Nor he, the great controller of the sky.” She also ensures Aeneas that he, “ bear no more than what the gods ordain.”
The virtue of piety was a defining characteristic in Roman life, Romans carried out their everyday lives in accordance of the ideas of pietas which is one’s duty to their family, God, and people; these Roman values are displayed in Virgil’s The Aeneid through the actions of the character Aeneas, and challenged further in the Gospel of Matthew by Jesus Christ. The word “pietas” is a Latin word that means dutifulness, and refers to the balanced duty to a person’s family, gods, and people in Roman culture. The Romans believed that for these duties to be upheld then it must be implemented in one’s everyday life, and this belief of the Romans separated them from other ancient societies. In The Aeneid, Aeneas engages in all aspects of pietas throughout his journey to Italy to become the ancestor to the city of Rome.
Many Roman morals of that time were simply translations and adaptations of Greek morals and philosophy which Romans incorporated into their culture. The elite especially mimicked the viewpoints and ideals of Greek culture, since it was seen as superior (Edwards 2002: 22-24). The historians of the time praised almost all things Greek: playwriters and poets sought to mimic and, in some cases, copy Greek poetry; Greek art was popular in elite villas; and Greek philosophy was studied endlessly (Edwards 2002: 22-24). In this way, Rome organized itself to function morally in a system originally developed within completely different economic and political systems of Greece. From a sexual morality perspective, the Greek system of morality kept women completely under the control of the men, even if the men were away fighting wars or trading with distant peoples.
The Aeneid was commissioned by Augustus, the first citizen of Rome. Augustus desired to restore Rome after a brutal civil war and advocated for a conservative standpoint. (Williams). Within the Aeneid, the praise of Augustus’ values does not merely alter the plot, but rather it is the plot. Primarily, the Aeneid is a story about the fate of Rome, not Aeneas himself.