Politics and Poetics 20.10.2016
Term 1, lecture-seminar 3. The poetics of empire: Virgil’s Aeneid
Passages from the Aeneid for consideration in lectures/seminars and for exam revision (nb: in the lectures we will not be able to look at each and every passage!):
Book 1: 441-497
Book 6: 1-41
Book 8: 306-61, 617-731
Book 9: 176-449
Book 10: 495-99
Book 12: 919-952
- The politics of form/narrative: epic
- Competing/interacting media: writing and song
- Epic projects cultural prestige, power, authority: does the genre therefore tend to produce political conservatism?
- Callimacheanism vs classicism: the non-purity of genre
Exercise:
A)How helpful is the label ‘epic’ in describing the Aeneid? Do some elements of the work jar with our expectations of epic? Think of some examples.
B)Now let’s think about the politics of these questions. Is meandering, uncertainty, or literary intricacy less ‘magnificent’ or less ‘powerful’ than thrusting, loud encomium? Are ambiguity and political weight/impact mutually exclusive (and if so to what extent, under what circumstances)? Does representation and celebration of the ‘heroic’ preclude an examination of grief and sorrow that does not come to a reassuring conclusion? Is the notion that the achievement of peace often involves brutal violence necessarily wrong or problematic?
- The politics of content
E.g.: the unification of Italy and Rome (books 7-12); the Punic wars (book 4); the battle of Actium (books 1, 8); the prophecy of Anchises (book 6); the shield of Aeneas (book 8);
Nb:
- Augustus as an ‘idea’
- Power as diffuse
- Literature as performative/productive rather than simply ‘representative’ of politics
- The nature of poetic language
- The politics of the Aeneid is inseparable from the politics of reading the poem, and from the politics of its reception.
- The future in the past: contrast, continuity, timing
Aeneid 8.306-61
(Fitzgerald’s translation):
When they had carried out the ritual
They turned back to the town. And, slowed by age,
The king walked, keeping Aeneas and his son
Close by his side, with talk of various things
To make the long path easy. Marvelling,
Aeneas gladly looked at all about him,
Delighted with the setting, asking questions,
Hearing of earlier men and what they left.
The King Evander, founder unaware
Of Rome’s great citadel, said:
“These woodland places
once were homes of local fauns and nymphs
together with a race of men that came
from tree trunks, from hard oak: they had no way
of settled life, no arts of life, no skill
at yoking oxen, gathering provisions,
practising husbandry, but got their food
from oaken boughs and wild game hunted down.
In that first time, out of Olympian heaven,
Saturn came here in flight from Jove in arms,
An exile from a kingdom lost; he brought
These unschooled men together from the hills
Where they were scattered, gave them laws, and chose
The name of Latium, from his latency
Or safe concealment in this countryside.
In his reign were the golden centuries
Men tell of still, so peacefully he ruled,
Till gradually a meaner, tarnished age
Came on with fever of war and lust of gain.
Then came Ausonians and Sicanians,
And Saturn’s land now often changed her name,
And there were kings, one savage and gigantic,
Thybris, from whom we afterborn Italians
Named the river Tiber. The old name,
Albula, was lost. As for myself,
In exile from my country, I set out
For the sea’s end, but Fortune that prevails
In everything, Fate not to be thrown off,
Arrested me in this land – solemn warnings
Came from my mother, from the nymph Carmentis,
Backed by the god Apollo, to urge me here.”
Just after this, as he went on he showed
The altar and the gate the Roman call
Carmental, honouring as of old the nymph
And prophetess Carmentis, first to sing
The glory of Pallanteum and Aeneas’
Great descendants. Then he showed the wood
That Romulus would make a place of refuge,
Then the grotto called the Lupercal
Under the cold crag, named in Arcadian fashion
After Lycaean Pan. And then as well
He showed the sacred wood of Argiletum,
“Argus’death”, and took oath by it, telling
of a guest, Argus, put to death.From there
he led to our Tarpeian site, and Capitol,
All golden now, in those days tangled, wild
With underbrush – but awesome even then.
A strangeness there filled country hearts with dread
And made then shiver at the wood and Rock.
“Some god” he said, “it is not sure what god,
lives in this grove, this hilltop thick with leaves.
Arcadians think they’ve seen great Jove himself
Sometimes with his right hand shaking the aegis
To darken sky and make the storm clouds rise
Towering in turmoil. Here, too, in these walls
Long fallen down, you see what were two towns,
Monuments of the ancient. Father Janus
Founded one stronghold, Saturn the other,
Named Janiculum and Saturnia.”
Conversing of such matters, going toward
Austere Evander’s house, they saw his cattle
Lowing everywhere in what is now
Rome’s Forum and her fashionable quarter,
Carinae.
Question for discussion:
- Look at how the poet highlights both difference and continuity between past and present. What might an ‘optimistic’ and a ‘pessimistic’ reading of this passage look like? In thinking about this, consider what kind of vision of history Virgil is presenting here, and what its political function might be.
Latin text
Exim se cuncti divinis rebus ad urbem
perfectis referunt. ibat rex obsitus aevo,
et comitem Aenean iuxta natumque tenebat
ingrediens varioque viam sermone levabat.
miratur facilisque oculos fert omnia circum310
Aeneas, capiturque locis et singula laetus
exquiritque auditque virum monimenta priorum.
tum rex Evandrus Romanae conditor arcis:
'haec nemora indigenae Fauni Nymphaeque tenebant
gensque virum truncis et duro robore nata,315
quis neque mos neque cultus erat, nec iungere tauros
aut componere opes norant aut parcere parto,
sed rami atque asper victu venatus alebat.
primus ab aetherio venit Saturnus Olympo
arma Iovis fugiens et regnis exsul ademptis.320
is genus indocile ac dispersum montibus altis
composuit legesque dedit, Latiumque vocari
maluit, his quoniam latuisset tutus in oris.
aurea quae perhibent illo sub rege fuere
saecula: sic placida populos in pace regebat,325
deterior donec paulatim ac decolor aetas
et belli rabies et amor successit habendi.
tum manus Ausonia et gentes venere Sicanae,
saepius et nomen posuit Saturnia tellus;
tum reges asperque immani corpore Thybris, 330
a quo post Itali fluvium cognomine Thybrim
diximus; amisit verum vetus Albula nomen.
me pulsum patria pelagique extrema sequentem
Fortuna omnipotens et ineluctabile fatum
his posuere locis, matrisque egere tremenda 335
Carmentis nymphae monita et deus auctor Apollo.'
Vix ea dicta, dehinc progressus monstrat et aram
et Carmentalem Romani nomine portam
quam memorant, nymphae priscum Carmentis honorem,
vatis fatidicae, cecinit quae prima futuros 340
Aeneadas magnos et nobile Pallanteum.
hinc lucum ingentem, quem Romulus acer asylum
rettulit, et gelida monstrat sub rupe Lupercal
Parrhasio dictum Panos de more Lycaei.
nec non et sacri monstrat nemus Argileti 345
testaturque locum et letum docet hospitis Argi.
hinc ad Tarpeiam sedem et Capitolia ducit
aurea nunc, olim silvestribus horrida dumis.
iam tum religio pavidos terrebat agrestis
dira loci, iam tum silvam saxumque tremebant.350
'hoc nemus, hunc' inquit 'frondoso vertice collem
(quis deus incertum est) habitat deus; Arcades ipsum
credunt se vidisse Iovem, cum saepe nigrantem
aegida concuteret dextra nimbosque cieret.
haec duo praeterea disiectis oppida muris, 355
reliquias veterumque vides monimenta virorum.
hanc Ianus pater, hanc Saturnus condidit arcem;
Ianiculum huic, illi fuerat Saturnia nomen.'
talibus inter se dictis ad tecta subibant
pauperis Evandri, passimque armenta videbant360
Romanoque foro et lautis mugire Carinis.
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