Fathers And Sons In Virgil S Aeneid

In this book, M. Owen Lee provides a comprehensive narrative summary of Virgil's Aeneid and a personal account of his experience with the epic poem. Noting that Virgil is the writer most Latinists read early, live with, and often come to love late, Lee expresses a clear devotion to the poet's work and relates how it has touched him throughout his life. While most criticism of the Aeneid makes a distinction between what critics say and what an individual may respond to, Lee takes a unique approach by analyzing the epic story from his own point of view. He not only explores the extensive Virgilian tradition, but also looks at the work of other poets, as well as philosophers, artists, composers, and filmmakers in order to better understand the Aeneid. Lee concludes that Virgil's poem, with its unavailing fathers and dutiful sons, its ineffably sad view of a failed humanity and a flawed universe, still touches hearts and, in ways Virgil could not have foreseen, still affects human lives.

Monumental epic poem tells the heroic story of Aeneas, a Trojan who escaped the burning ruins of Troy to found Lavinium, the parent city of Rome, in the west.

One of the masterpieces of Latin and, indeed, world literature, Virgil's Aeneid was written during the Augustan "renaissance" of architecture, art, and literature that redefined the Roman world in the early years of the empire. This period was marked by a transition from the use of rhetoric as a means of public persuasion to the use of images to display imperial power. Taking a fresh approach to Virgil's epic poem, Riggs Alden Smith argues that the Aeneid fundamentally participates in the Augustan shift from rhetoric to imagery because it gives primacy to vision over speech as the principal means of gathering and conveying information as it recounts the heroic adventures of Aeneas, the legendary founder of Rome. Working from the theories of French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Smith characterizes Aeneas as a voyant-visible, a person who both sees and is seen and who approaches the world through the faculty of vision. Engaging in close readings of key episodes throughout the poem, Smith shows how Aeneas repeatedly acts on what he sees rather than what he hears. Smith views Aeneas' final act of slaying Turnus, a character associated with the power of oratory, as the victory of vision over rhetoric, a triumph that reflects the ascendancy of visual symbols within Augustan society. Smith's new interpretation of the predominance of vision in the Aeneid makes it plain that Virgil's epic contributes to a new visual culture and a new mythology of Imperial Rome.

In Dreams of the Burning Child, David Lee Miller explores the uncanny persistence of filial sacrifice as a motif in English literature and its classical and biblical antecedents. He combines strikingly original reinterpretations of the Aeneid, Hamlet, The Winter's Tale, and Dombey and Son with perceptive accounts of dreams found in memoirs, poems, and psychoanalytic texts. Miller looks closely at the grisly fantasy of the sacrifice of sons as it is depicted in classical epic, early modern drama, the nineteenth-century novel, the postcolonial novel, the lyric, the funeral elegy, sacred scriptures, and psychoanalytic theory. He also draws examples from painting, sculpture, photography, and architecture into a witty and engaging discussion that ranges from the binding of Isaac to Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, and from questions of literary history to the dilemmas of patriarchal masculinity.

Argues that Stoic thought on human responsibility and world fate plays a key role in the Aeneid's characterisation and morality.

Introduction : interpreting Shakespeare's sons : ambivalence, rescue, and revenge -- Paternal authority and filial autonomy in Shakespeare's England -- Henry VI, part one : prototypical beginnings : the two John Talbots -- Richard II : patrilineal inheritance and the generation gap -- Henry IV, part one : Deep defiance and the rebel prince -- Henry IV, part two : the prince becomes the king, with a note on Henry V -- Hamlet : notes from the underground : paternal and filial subterfuge -- King Lear : the usurpation of fathers, and of fathers and sons -- Macbeth and the late plays : the disappearance of ambivalent sons -- Biographical coda : William Shakespeare, son of John Shakespeare -- Appendix 1 : Shakespearean fathers and sons in Edward III -- Appendix 2 : Thomas Plume's anecdote : the merry-cheeked, jest-cracking John Shakespeare, Sir John Mennes, and Sir John Falstaff

The original CliffsNotes study guides offer expert commentary on major themes, plots, characters, literary devices, and historical background. The latest generation of titles in this series also features glossaries and visual elements that complement the classic, familiar format. CliffsNotes on Aeneid takes you on the journey of a band of survivors who leave their destroyed city to seek another home in a faraway country. Woven from myth and legend, the story is about rebirth, about life springing forth from ruin and death. This study guide will help navigate the voyages of the Trojans and uncover their significance in Virgil's time and today. You'll also gain insight into the life and cultural background of the author. Other features that help you study include Character analyses of major players A character map that graphically illustrates the relationships among the characters Critical essays A review section that tests your knowledge A Resource Center full of books, articles, films, and Internet sites Classic literature or modern-day treasure—you'll understand it all with expert information and insight from CliffsNotes study guides.