Vergil's Aeneid: A Poem of Grief and Love

190 Pages·1993·3.363 MB·English

by  Steven Farron

VERGIL'S AENEID
A POEM OF GRIEF AND LOVE
MNEMOSYNE
BIBLIOTHECA CLASSICA BAT AVA
COLLEGERUNT
A.D. LEEMAN· H.W. PLEKET · C.J. RUIJGH
BIBLIOTHECAE FASCICULOS EDENDOS CURAVIT
C.J. RUIJGH, KLASSIEK SEMINARIUM, OUDE TURFMARKT 129, AMSTERDAM
SUPPLEMENTUM CENTESIMUM VICESIMUM SECUNDUM
STEVEN FARRON
VERGIL'S AENEID
A POEM OF GRIEF AND LOVE
VERGIL'S AENEID
A POEM OF GRIEF AND LOVE
BY
STEVEN FARRON
EJ. BRILL
LEIDEN • NEW YORK • KOLN
1993
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library
Resources.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Farron, Steven.
Vergil's Aeneid: a poem of grief and love I by Steven Farron.
p. cm.-(Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica batava.
Supplementum, ISSN 0169-8958; v. 122)
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 9004096612 (alk. paper)
1. Virgil. Aeneis. 2. Aeneas (Legendary character) in
literature. 3. Epic poetry, Latin-History and criticism. 4. Grief
in literature. 5. Love in literature. 6. Rome in literature.
I. Title. II. Series.
PA6825.F37 1993
873'.01-dc20 93-6782
CIP
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsnahme
Farron, Steven:
Vergil's Aeneid: a poem of grief and love I by Steven Farron.
Leiden; New York; Koln: Brill, 1993
(Mnemosyne: Supp1ementum; 122)
ISBN 90-04-09661-2
NE: Mnemosyne I Supp1ementum
ISSN 0169-8958
ISBN 90 04 09661 2
© Copyright 1993 by E.J. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands
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PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS
To my Father and Mother
Optimis Parentibus

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface......................................................................................... ix
I. Nisus and Euryalus ......................................................... . 1
A. In books 5 and 9 Nisus and Euryalus are praised
for their love for each other despite their
immorality and neglect of duty. ........................ . 2
B. Vergil's culture greatly admired passionate,
self-destructive love ............................................... . 14
C. Vergil, even more than his contemporaries,
admired suffering and dying for love............... 19
D. Modern interpretations of the Nisus-Euryalus
episode...................................................................... 24
E. Pre-modern interpretations of the Nisus-Euryalus
episode...................................................................... 26
II. Ancient and modern literary attitudes........................ 31
A. Ancient and modern interpretations
of Greek tragedy..................................................... 34
B. Ancient emotional reactions to literature, history,
oratory, painting, sculpture, music, lectures..... 39
C. Modern reactions to ancient literature and
literary criticism.................................................... 42
D. Ancient attempts to find meaning in literature
and their relation to the Aeneid............................. 48
E. Ancient and modern attitudes to unity in the
Homeric epics......................................................... 51
F. Lack of unity in Apollonius' Argonautica and
Roman poetry......................................................... 56
III. The poem of grief and love............................................. 61
A. The looseness of the structure of the Aeneid........... 61
B. Pathos in the Aeneid.................................................... 63
C. Pre-modern reactions to the Dido-Aeneas
episode...................................................................... 70
D. The relation of the Dido-Aeneas (and Nisus-Euryalus)
episode to ancient personal love poetry.............. 81
E. The relation of the Dido-Aeneas episode to
ancient mythological love poetry....................... 92
viii CONTENTS
F. Benefacta and betrayal as a source of pathos for
Dido and other ancient lovers.............................. 97
G. Guilty conscience as a source of pathos for
Dido and other characters in the Aeneid
and in ancient literature....................................... 100
H. The purpose of the Dido episode is not to praise
or blame Aeneas..................................................... 108
I. The gods in the Dido-Aeneas episode and in
ancient amatory literature.................................... 124
]. Similarities between the gods in book 2 of the
Aeneid and in the Dido-Aeneas episode.............. 140
Postscript ................................................................................... 146
Appendix: Recent interpretations of the Nisus-Euryalus
episode.................................................................................... 155
Bibliography............................................................................... 165
Index............................................................................................ 172
PREFACE
To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world- in order to set
up a shadow world of 'meanings' ... For decades now, literary
critics have understood it to be their task to translate the elements
of a poem or play or novel or story into something else .... Thus, in
the notes that Elia Kazan published on his production of A Streetcar
Named Desire, it becomes clear that in order to direct the play Kazan
had to discover that Stanley Kowalski represented the sensual and
vengeful barbarism that was engulfing our culture, while Blanche
Du Bois was Western Civilization, ... it was about something, about
the decline of Western Civilization. Apparently, were it to go on
being a play about a handsome brute ... and a mangy belle ... it
would not be manageable.
(Susan Sontag, "Against Interpretation",
Evergreen Review, 1964)
Modem critics of the Aeneid assume that all or most of its episodes
must serve the purpose of making some comment on Aeneas and
his mission to found the Roman people, and through them on
Rome and Augustus; whether to explain and propound their
positive aspects and achievements, or to show that they are brutal
and destructive, or to contrast the public 'voice' of their accom
plishments with the private 'voice' of the loss and suffering they
cause. In this book I argue that this basic assumption is wrong; the
Aeneid's main purpose was to do nothing more than what it
obviously does: present a series of emotionally moving episodes,
especially pathetic ones. I also show that that is what the ancient
Greeks and Romans expected and prized in literature and that that
is what the Aeneid was appreciated for, from Vergil's time until the
late nineteenth century. It was then that scholars began regarding
it as their duty to 'correct' this impression. These corrections show
that the initial reaction of modern readers to the Aeneid is the same
as that of earlier readers. If I succeed, I will enable readers to
enjoy the Aeneid for the reasons it was always enjoyed and for
which it is their initial impulse to enjoy it.
I hope to accomplish for the Aeneid what C. S. Lewis said, in the
'Dedication' of his A Preface to Paradise Lost (1942), Charles
Williams had done for that epic:
the recovery of a true critical tradition after more than a hundred
years of laborious misunderstanding. The ease with which the
X PREFACE
thing was done would have seemed inconsistent with the weight
that had to be lifted ... the door of the prison was really unlocked
all the time, but it was only you who thought of trying the handle.
The gestation of this book is significant. From the time I began
studying the Aeneid, it seemed obvious to me that Aeneas and his
mission are often portrayed unfavourably, especially in the Dido
episode, that attempts to interpret that and other episodes as favour
able depictions of Aeneas and his mission involved gross and
blatant distortions of the text and that the 'two voices' approach was
inadequate. Since I shared the premise of all modern critics that
the Aeneid must have been composed in order to make a statement
about Aeneas, his mission, Rome and Augustus, the only possible
conclusion was that its purpose was to attack them. I wrote several
articles arguing this view and in 1981 signed a contract to write a
book which would present these arguments systematically.
When I was unable to complete the book by the date stipulated, the
contract lapsed. Nevertheless, I continued working on the book.
However, the more I did, the further I was from completion. The
problem was that my attempts to refute the propagandistic and
'two voices' approaches with arguments from the text, the outlook
of Vergil's literary culture and pre-modern interpretations of the
Aeneid produced interminable chapters, appendices, etc. Finally,
when the drawers of my desk and my bookshelves were
overflowing with notes, outlines and half-completed chapters, I
gave up, consoling myself with the knowledge that my research
and thought on the Aeneid had deepened my understanding of it,
improved my lectures and provided the material for many
articles.
However, I then decided to try once again, using the method
which Erich Auerbach employed in his Mimesis: beginning with
a detailed analysis in depth of one passage and then applying the
results of that analysis to a broad, general discussion of a topic
which has too many ramifications to be expounded systema
tically. Since the Dido episode has always been regarded as the
great glory of the Aeneid and much more has been written about it
than about any other episode, I decided to approach it through a
detailed analysis of the other love story in the Aeneid, that of Nisus
and Euryalus. Refuting the propagandistic and 'two voices' inter
pretations of that episode was easy, but to my surprise I discovered
that the anti-Aeneas, anti-Roman interpretation also distorted the