Public and private in Vergil's Aeneid PDF
Preview Public and private in Vergil's Aeneid
title: Public and Private in Vergil's Aeneid author: Wiltshire, Susan Ford. publisher: University of Massachusetts Press isbn10 | asin: 0870236504 print isbn13: 9780870236501 ebook isbn13: 9780585142289 language: English Virgil.--Aeneis, Aeneas (Legendary character) in literature, Epic poetry, Latin-- History and criticism, Social values in subject literature, Sex role in literature, Politics in literature, Family in literature, Rome in literature. publication date: 1989 lcc: PA6825.W538 1989eb ddc: 883/.01 Virgil.--Aeneis, Aeneas (Legendary character) in literature, Epic poetry, Latin-- History and criticism, Social values in subject: literature, Sex role in literature, Politics in literature, Family in literature, Rome in literature. Page iii Public and Private in Vergil's Aeneid Susan Ford Wiltshire The University of Massachusetts Press Amherst, 1989 Page iv Copyright © 1989 by The University of Massachusetts Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 88-14702 LC 0-87023-650-4 ISBN Designed by Edith Kearney Set in Linotron Granjon by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Printed by Thomson-Shore and bound by John Dekker & Sons Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wiltshire, Susan Ford, 1941- Public and private in Vergil's Aeneid / Susan Ford Wiltshire. p. cm. Bibliography: p. Includes indexes. 0-87023-650-4 ISBN 1. Virgil. Aeneis. 2. Politics in literature. 3. Family in literature. 4. Social values in literature. 5. Sex role in literature. I. Title. 6825.w538 1989 PA 883'.01dc19 88-14702 CIP British Library Cataloguing in Publication data are available. Acknowledgment for permission to reprint selections from material under copy- right appears on the last printed page of this book. Page v To LDF and the memory of JFF and To JEF Good citizens of both realms Page vii Different from his our age and myths, our toil The same. C. Day Lewis Page ix Contents Preface xi Introduction 3 1. Public, Private, and the Problem of Time 22 2. Grieving Mothers and the Costs of Attachment 38 3. Self-Distancing and the Capacity for Action 56 4. Where Is Home? 66 5. Hospitality and the Transformation of Realms 83 6. Amor in the Aeneid 106 7. Bridging Public and Private: Labor and Pietas 122 Conclusion 139 Notes 145 Index Locorum 157 Index 161 Page xi Preface Work, family, politics, friendship, the desire to create, and the longing for solitude all pull us in different directions. Weighing and ordering these competing claims set the course for a human life. In the larger sphere, the value accorded each and the arrangement achieved among them form the character of an entire culture. I first became aware of a tension between the public and the private realms in Vergil's Aeneid through my study of grieving mothers in the epic. Gradually I came to see that the contrast Vergil poses between maternal love and civic obligation forms only one instance of a larger polarity between public and private concerns in the poem. In another way, a spirited conversation with poet Allen Tate in the spring of 1978 helped form the conception of this book. We talked at length that bright April afternoon in Nashville about Vergil, Rome, tradition in literature, and the particular applicabilities of the Aeneid to the American experience. In the years since, many occasions and individuals have contributed to the development of these ideas. In 1979 I retraced part of Aeneas's journey through the Mediterranean and realized at Segesta in Sicily how attached Vergil was to places. An observance of the Vergil bi- millennium in 1982 at the Villa Vergiliana near Naples, Italy, chaired by Alexander G. McKay, provided the opportunity for lively exchange with colleagues, as did pleasant occasions hosted by the Departments of Classics of the University of Missouri, Emory University, and Haverford College. Closer to home, the experience of part-time farming, familiar also from my childhood in Texas, put me in touch again with Vergil's attraction to rural life. At the same time, various civic and political interests have served as reminders of why Vergil considered public life so important. My colleagues in the Department of Classical Studies at Vanderbilt University make our department a hospitable and happy place to work. I am grateful to each of them, as well as to friends in political science and philosophy who bridge the disciplines by sharing ideas and bibliography.
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