The New Hero Of Aeneas Essay Research

The New Hero Of Aeneas Essay, Research Paper

Can myopia afflict an individual with so severe a malady to the extreme of proclaiming, “If you take from Vergilius his diction and metre, what do you leave him”. Unless we take this statement as a neophyte joke, we may not be able to continue. The objective of this essay is to clean the bifocals of those whom I presumed after reading the Aeneid as a botched-up replica of the Iliad and the Odyssey conclude that it is indeed so and go about perpetuating such calumny. Hence, to answer the obvious, if we strip Vergilius of his diction and metre, we leave him a new type of hero. Well, actually he leaves us a new type of hero, a hero that is foreign to the golden age of Homer. He presents a new ideal of heroism and shows us in what fields it can be exercised. Unlike Homer, the essence of his conception is that a man’s virtus is shown less in combat and physical danger than in the defeat of his own weaknesses. Aeneas sees his chief obstacles within himself and his greater victories are when he triumphs over them whereas the Homerian hero relies much more on physical gifts than in moral strength to overcome his trials in the battlefield. Homer believed that a man owed great actions to the ideal of manhood and that in his short span of life he must do all that he can to show that he is really a man. Conversely, Aeneas performs his duty, because the gods have laid it upon it despite the fact that such faithful obedience is hardly to his advantage.

First, a new vision of human nature and heroic virtue is presented in Vergilius’ poetry. He is concerned with the Roman spirit as a whole whereas Homer concentrates on individuals and their destinies. The dooms of Achilles and Hector dominate his design; their characters determine the action. However, from the start, Vergilius shows that his special concern is the destiny not of a man but of a nation, not of Aeneas but of Rome. Although he opens up with “This is the tale of arms and of a man” and suggests that his hero is another Achilles, or Odysseus, he has, before the end of the first paragraph, shown that he reaches beyond Aeneas to the long history that followed from him: “and that was the origin of the Latin nation, the Lords of Alba, and the proud battlements of Rome” (I, 6-7). Soon after wards, when he has noted the obstacles that the Trojans meet in their wanderings, he again ends a period in the similar note: “Such was the cost in heavy toil of beginning the life of Rome” (I, 33). Once again, when Venus complains that her son Aeneas is unjustly treated, Jupiter replies not only by promising that all will be well for Aeneas but by giving a prophetic sketch of Roman history to Julius Caesar. This reward, which the ancestor is to receive, is much more than his own success or glory, more even than his settlement in Italy. It is the assurance of the Roman destiny, of universal and unending dominion: “To Romans I set no boundary in space or time. I have granted them dominion, and it has no end” (I, 278-79). As we can see, at the outset Vergilius shows what kind of destiny is the subject of his poem. The wanderings, sufferings and ultimate success of Aeneas and his followers are but a preliminary and preparation for a greater theme.

Secondly, there is different theme in Vergilius’ art. The fundamental argument of the Aeneid is the destiny of Rome presented in the person of Aeneas who not only struggles and suffers for the Rome that is to be but who is already a typical Roman. If his individual fortune is subordinate to the future of Rome, his character shows what Romans are. He is Vergilius’ hero in a new kind of heroic poem, and in him, we see how different Vergilius’ heroic vision is from Homer’s. Unlike Homer, Vergilius owes little in his hero character to tradition. Whereas Homer had to conform to established notions and make his Achilles “swift of foot,” his Agamemnon “king of men,” and his Odysseus “of many wiles,” Vergilius was bound by no such obligations. He could find his characters where he chose and shape them to suit his own purpose. His Aeneas owes something to Homeric precedent in being a great warrior and a devout servant of the gods, but he has taken on a new personality and is the legitimate child of Vergilius’ brooding meditation and imaginative vision. The persons of the Aeneid are created and fashioned for a special purpose. They contribute to the main design, and everything that they say or do may be considered in the light of Rome’s destiny. For this very reason, we will be wrong to treat them as if they were dramatic characters of Homer. They are more, and they are less. They are more, because they stand for something outside themselves, for something typically and essentially Roman; they are types, examples, symbols. Moreover, they are less, because any typical character will lack the lineaments and idiosyncracities, the personal appeal and the intimate claims, of a character that is created for his sake and for the poet’s pleasure in him. Furthermore, because Aeneas is typical of Rome, the events through which he passes are equally so. He represents what may happen to any Roman. He behaves as a Roman would in conditions familiar to Roman experience. Therefore, though the action takes place in a historical past, it transcends history in a way that the Trojan War does not for Homer. The Aeneid special claim is that it typifies a class of actions and situations