Virgil and the Aeneid

My MLitt dissertation:

This dissertation investigates the translations of Latin poems by Charles Hubert Sisson (1914-2013), focusing primarily on how Sisson explores English national identity through his translations of Aeneid 6, called ‘The Descent.'

"When the bullets start flying, I hope the first one gets you." The man in the crosshairs was the author's father. It was an era of seismic social change in the American South. Four decades later, his son visited the National September 11 Museum. In a young firefighter's heroism on 9/11, the author glimpsed a truth about his father's lifelong devotion to duty, law, and justice. So he sat down and began writing him letters. THE BURDENS OF AENEAS is that series of letters--a fascinating collection of wide-ranging essays, invented conversations, reminiscences, interior monologues, and vivid descriptions of life in a vanishing America. Part memoir, part extended reflection on paternal duty and love, it breaks new ground in blending deeply personal writing with scholarly meditation on a masterwork of world literature, Virgil's AENEID.

Saint Augustine's Confessions might at first read like a straightforward autobiography, but upon closer look it would appear that the young Augustine's life story, including his eventual conversion and baptism, are supposed to be exemplary; the reader ought to learn from the young protagonist's mistakes, take his decisions to heart, and follow up on them in his own life. To enhance acceptance of the story and to make it easier for the addressee to identify with the young man, it is essential that the addressee should see the young Augustine as a man living an ordinary life in a world that is for all that matters familiar to the addressee's own world. In order to create that familiar world Augustine the author makes use of quotations and images from, as well as references to classical pagan sources profusely. In this article I will point out and analyse a number of examples of this intertextuality, all relating to Vergil's Aeneid-a color Vergilianus-starting with the passage about memory in book 10 of the Confessions, which, as I will show, is an allusion to the underworld passage in book 6 of the Aeneid, and as such a crucial element within the narrative framework of the Confessions. Analysing this color Vergilianus, I hope to contribute to our understanding of the scope and function of Augustine's use of intertextuality in the Confessions in general.

In the same way that there is a hidden crime in Latium 2 concerning Amata and Turnus, Virgil also hid another mystery, which is this: who was the person who wounded the protégé of Jupiter, Aeneas? The words that expose this other mystery come after the treaty between Aeneas and the city of Laurentum has been confirmed, and suddenly broken. This is what happens after the sudden rebellion explodes: At pius Aeneas dextram tendebat inermem nudato capite atque suos clamore vocabat: "quo ruitis? quaeve ista repens discordia surgit? o cohibete iras! ictum iam foedus et omnes compositae leges. mihi ius concurrere soli; me sinite atque auferte metus. ego foedera faxo firma manu; Turnum debent haec iam mihi sacra." has inter voces, media inter talia verba ecce viro stridens alis adlapsa sagitta est, incertum qua pulsa manu, quo turbine adacta, quis tantam Rutulis laudem, casusne deusne, attulerit; pressa est insignis gloria facti, nec sese Aeneae iactavit vulnere quisquam. But good Aeneas, with head bared, was stretching forth his unarmed hand, and calling loudly to his 1 At

Abstract.
In Virgil’s Aeneid tears are always a manifestation of human weakness respect with the inexorable path of destiny. Even Aeneas, an ambiguous character, because of his fundamental pietas, which makes him a submissive instrument of Fate, often weeps, and his tears are the expression of his deep feelings, which make no claim to change events, but reveal his intimate human sensitivity. In the course of the events he becomes increasingly aware of his high mission and weeps no more.
Key words: Aeneas; tears; weeping; Fate; pietas.

Abstract.
On the subject of tears Virgil shares the attitude of the intellectuals, who criticize the exasperated and public manifestations of pain, but on the other hand he gives dignity to the suffering of his characters. In the Aeneid, in which this topic finds a great space, crying is the expression of the impotence of men and gods in front of the inexorable fulfillment of Fate, and above all Aeneas appears divided between the need to remain insensitive to tears and the desire to express his human feelings.
Key words: weeping in the Aeneid; Stoicism; lament; Fate; pietas.

Résumé.
Au sujet des larmes, Virgile partage d’une part l’attitude des intellectuels, critiques envers des manifestations exaspérées et publiques de douleur, mais, d’autre part, donne de la dignité à la souffrance des personnages. Dans l’Énéide, où les larmes occupent une place particulière, elles sont l’expression de l’impuissance des hommes et des dieux devant l’accomplissement inexorable du destin, et surtout Enée apparaît partagé entre le besoin de rester insensible aux larmes et d’exprimer ses sentiments humains.
Mots-clés: larmes dans l’Énéide; Stoïcisme; lamentation; destin; pietas.

This paper will examine two kinds of death found in Virgil's Aeneid through the characters of Dido and Aeneas. I will suggest that both are self-inflicted deaths. The term for self-inflicted death is suicide, which typically refers to a literal, physical death. In this paper I mean to expand the notion of suicidal death beyond its usual corporeal denotation. I am viewing suicide from a psychological perspective as well as from the literal or physical point of view.

ABSTRACT: In Vergil’s Aen. VI 806 some manuscripts transmit virtutem extendere factis,
some others virtute extendere vires, but the similar expression famam extendere
factis in Aen. X 468 seems to suggest the revival of a meaningful poetic
formula.