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CLST 272-001: Heroes and Classical Epics
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Fall Semester 2007
Dr. Jacqueline Long
Study Questions
Just as it says in the other file, these
questions suggest directions for
you to pursue your
ideas about Classical epics.
Questions about upcoming readings generally flag text I expect will be
important in class discussions. Questions referring back to class
discussions tries to pick up threads from important issues I expect us
to be discussing. But the questions do not merely summarize our
discussions (summary is a worthwhile, but different, kind of studying),
nor do they necessarily forecast exam questions very closely.
Rather, they invite you to develop interesting lines of thought.
One thing exams will ask you to do is to discuss specific
ideas about heroes and Classical epics in terms of concrete evidence in
our course material. Therefore
you will find it useful, as you think about even very wide-ranging
questions, to identify specific pieces of
evidence in the material
we are covering that help demonstrate
your observations and prove your
insights, and to be able to explain
clearly just how those pieces of
evidence validate the conclusions you draw.
file in progress - perennially |
The study questions in this file will be updated
through the course of the semester. Keep watching this space! |
Monday 15 October
From today's class:
- What concerns receive repeated emphasis in the episodes of
Odysseus's Wanderings? How do they, with their repetitions and
variations, help articulate a many-faceted account of who Odysseus is?
For example - and then, how many more important ideas can you trace?
- Where does Odysseus's record as a hero of the Trojan War
matter? What aspects of his activities are especially important?
- Where does Odysseus's leadership especially matter? What sort
of relationship does he have with his crewmen - what "rules" seem to
govern the way they treat one another? Besides the negotiation of
authority and responsibility, what do Odysseus and his men mean to one
another?
- Where does Odysseus's humanity especially matter? Where is it
confronted with monsters? Where is it confronted with animals? Where is
it confronted with divinities? What do these different encounters imply
about humanity?
- Where does hospitality matter? What is received? What is offered?
How does the relationship that is created help to define the nature of
its parties? How closely do Odysseus's encounters in the Otherworld
compare with real-life norms on view in Books I-IV, when Telemachus
served as either host or guest?
- Where do food and eating matter? What differences in patterns of
food and eating are on view? How do they distinguish one group or
character from another?
- Where do sex and marriage matter? What do they make possible? What
dangers do they pose, for whom?
- How do repetition and reconfiguration in different episodes help
develop important themes within the Wanderings? How do these concerns
connect with the remainder of the Odyssey?
For tomorrow's reading:
- How does Poseidon react to the Phaeacians' granting Odysseus
passage to Ithaca? What impact do his actions have upon the world?
- How does Athene intervene at the moment of Odysseus's return to
Ithacan soil? How does Odysseus react? How do they reunite?
- Who is Eumaeus? How does he receive Odysseus?
- What stories does Odysseus tell Eumaeus about himself - what point
do they aim at, and how do they go about striking there?
- Trace the omens and other promises of Odysseus's return that start
to accumulate in the second half of the Odyssey. Who affirms how
much, on what basis? What imagery is used?
Wednesday 17 October
From today's class:
- Identify and be able to discuss the ways Odysseus's Wanderings
connect with concerns and operations of his Return: what does
juxtaposing the Wanderings with the Return (rather than, for example,
tracing Odysseus's whole trajectory chronologically) do for Homer's story-telling?
- In what spheres does the action of the Odyssey concentrate?
What activities recur? Why are they important? How do repetition and
variation explore the nature of these activities? What do these
activities suggest the Odyssey is painting as an image of human
nature and heroism?
- In what ways -and how many of them- do Odysseus's Wanderings
connect with concerns and operations of his Return?
- What does the fate of the Phaeacians suggest about the importance
of Odysseus's Wanderings? Trace how divine power-politics operate in
this episode. Compare and contrast to divine interactions throughout
the Iliad.
For tonight's reading:
- Trace the omens and other promises of Odysseus's return that start
to accumulate in the second half of the Odyssey. Who affirms
how much, on what basis? What imagery is used?
- What is Eumaeus's background? What elements of his story resonate
with Odysseus's experiences or prospects?
- What do Odysseus and Telemachus plan together? With whom do they
think it is important to share information? With whom will they not
share? Why and why not?
Friday 19 October
From today's class:
- Trace how Odysseus's actions on Ithaca put his and Athene's plan
into action, and how the plan develops in response to action. How does
Odysseus utilize knowledge, deception, and endurance?
- How does Homer call attention to Odysseus's attempts to get a cloak
from Eumaeus? How do Odysseus's repetitions of this request build
significance for the cloak, beyond its material benefits? How do truth,
falsehood, and verification come together in Odysseus's requests: what
does he show about his methods and long-term purposes? What does
getting the cloak, at last, achieve for him?
- What depth does Eumaeus's life-story add to the Odyssey's
portrait of the human world in which Eumaeus and Odysseus live? What
inferences about human nature and what ideals for human conduct does
Eumaeus confirm?
- How does Helen's parting-gift to Telemachus configure themes of
women's familial
roles,
hospitality,
and 
marriage
and loyalty?
- How do truth and verification interrelate as concerns of the
Odyssey - in these books, in connection especially with
Odysseus's
masquerade and
prophecy, but
also throughout the epic?
For tonight's reading:
- Of what Telemachus has learned about Odysseus, what information
does he pass on to Penelope? How is this information contested, on what
grounds?
- How is Odysseus treated when he comes as a beggar to his house in
Ithaca
by
human dependents of the household;
by animals;
by Telemachus;
by the suitors;
by Penelope?
- Who is Irus? What is he doing at Odysseus's house? How does he
treat Odysseus?
- How does Penelope challenge the suitors in Book 18? How does
Odysseus interpret her challenge, and how does he react?
Monday 22 October
From today's class:
- Trace how concerns connected with hospitality play around
Telemachus, both as guest and as host. In what ways does he re-play
themes of hospitality that are connected to Odysseus elsewhere in the
Odyssey? In what ways does he re-play themes of hospitality in
connection with Odysseus presently?
- What patterns develop through episodes of hostile challenge
Odysseus faces on his way to his home, and after he arrives there? Who
gains power in these encounters? How?
- Trace how the narrative of the Odyssey brings Penelope closer,
on the one hand,
to
contact with Odysseus, and, on the other hand,
to the
point of choosing a husband.
- What actions and motivations are credited to Penelope, and what to
Athene's inspiration? Compare and contrast Athene's interventions with
Penelope to her interventions with Odysseus and with Telemachus: how much
does the goddess do? How does she do it? What other impulses does Penelope
identify as motivating her actions?
- What concerns are identified as uppermost in Penelope's mind? How?
- What reactions do Penelope's words and actions generate? How do other
characters value her - in what ways, and for what qualities?
For tonight's reading:
- How do Penelope and Odysseus interact? What does she report about
her own behavior in Odysseus's absence? What does she say she is going
to do now? How does he react? What does she say she has dreamed, and
how does he interpret it?
- What is the history of Odysseus's scar? What does it make happen
now?
- Who is Philoetius? How does he identify himself and his sympathies?
How does Odysseus respond?
- How does Telemachus assert himself before the suitors in Book 20?
How do they respond?
Wednesday 24 October
From today's class:
- Trace how themes of truth and verification play around Penelope: how does
she go about assessing how much she can rely on things she is told? What does
she comment about the problem of verifying information? Consider
supernatural
evidence such as dreams and omens,
hearsay
evidence of what people say, and
deeds and
events - including the prospective archery-contest.
- What can Penelope's interview with Odysseus in Book 19 tell him
about her? Consider both
what she
actually says and
what he can
infer from what she says. - What do Odysseus's remarks in the interview of Book 19 contribute to Penelope's
decisions? What events does she appear to be designing her decisions so as to
produce? How will these events help resolve her troubles?
- How much does Penelope know? How can the audience tell? What does this question
do for the audience?
- How does Odysseus's scar contribute to the plot of the Odyssey (what happens)?
How does it contribute to the thematic development of the Odyssey (why what-happens
matters)?
For tonight's reading:
- Who runs the archery-contest? On what basis of authority? How is
authority contested?
- Who tries the bow? How does each attempter fare?
- Who fights on which side? With what results?
- What happens to the women? On what basis of authority?
Friday 26 October
From today's class:
- How does Odysseus's scar contribute to the plot of the
Odyssey (what happens)? How does it contribute to the thematic
development of the Odyssey (why what-happens matters)?
- To what considerations important in the Odyssey as a whole
does the story of Odysseus's bow draw attention?
- What does the progress of the archery-contest suggest about the
abilities and character of
Telemachus,
the suitors,
particularly Antinous, and
Odysseus?
For tonight's reading:
- When the suitors are dead, who first tells Penelope Odysseus has
returned? What proof is offered? How does Penelope react? How does she
verify the report: what information does she seek, and how does she
conduct herself till she gets it?
- What do Odysseus and Penelope do once verification is achieved?
- What do the ghosts of the suitors report to the heroes of the
Trojan War about Odysseus's return? How does Agamemnon assess the news?
- How does Odysseus effect his reunion with Laertes?
- How do the suitors' deaths affect their survivors on Ithaca? How
are conflicts resolved?
Looking ahead: Study Guide for Exam 2
From today's class:
- In what ways do the archery-contest and its aftermath fulfil the
promise of the "Telemachy" in Books 1-4: how does Telemachus establish
maturity without overstepping into conflict with his returned father?
- What motifs and replayed narratives in the climactic books of
the Odyssey contribute to re-establishing his identity -in
its fullness- at his home? How? Compare and contrast Odysseus's
interaction with Laertes to earlier, more spontaneous instances of
this pattern: the
scar, the
bow,
the bed,
the tale of
the Wanderings -- and what others can you identify?
- Why is Book 24 necessary? How does Laertes recover his identity
through this action? Why do both Laertes' and Telemachus's identity
matter to the story the Odyssey is telling about Odysseus?
For tonight, review the Odyssey as a whole:
- What rights does the Odyssey suggest that Odysseus is
regarded as having? What responsibilities? How can you tell?
- Within the context of what Odysseus is regarded as justified or
obliged to do, what methods does the Odyssey display Odysseus
using to assert his rights and his identity? What do his methods
imply about the nature of his distinctive excellence?
- How do different parties align themselves with respect to Odysseus
and his identity and rights? How do their interactions reflect on
Odysseus? Consider also what is distinctive in the different
individuals' and groups' connections to Odysseus.
- Penelope; Telemachus; Laertes
- Eurycleia; Eumaeus; Philoetius
- Melantho, Melanthius, and other disloyal servants
- Antinous, Eurymachus, and the other suitors
- the suitors' families
- other citizens of Ithaca
- Athena; Poseidon; other divinities
- denizens of the Otherworld
- Nestor; Menelaus; Helen; other participants in the Trojan War
Looking ahead: Study Guide for Exam 2
From today's class:
- How do the different
settings,
challenges,
and relationships
surveyed by the Odyssey round out the picture of heroism sketched by the Iliad?
What capacities does Odysseus in the Odyssey embody that are the same as heroic
qualities portrayed in the Iliad? What capacities does Odysseus in the
Odyssey embody that are different from heroic qualities portrayed in the
Iliad? Do different qualities of Odysseus in the Odyssey appear as
additions to or changes from the heroic qualities portrayed in the Iliad?
How can you tell? Compare and contrast Odysseus in the Odyssey particulary to
- Odysseus in the Iliad
- Achilles in the Iliad
- the collective of generally-held values as expressed by various characters in the
Iliad (Hector, Sarpedon, Diomedes, Nestor, etc.)
- In what ways do Odysseus's experiences evoke common challenges
of human life in
the heroic Bronze Age of epic legend;
in the rustic
Dark Age in which developed the traditions of epic story-telling on
which Homer drew; and in
general, even now?
For tonight's reading:
Review your reading, your notes, your quizzes, your
presentation-papers, the Study Questions from
before mid-term break and in this file,
the Study Guide for Exam 2, and in short all
material assigned to date, for Exam 2 on Friday.
- What are major concerns we have been focusing on? What are
important ideas in the Odyssey? What passages
especially well illustrate important concepts, patterns of
understanding and interpretation, or kinds of expression? These key
passages will be good things to refer to as evidence for proving
points on your exam.
- What types of analysis have we brought to bear on our texts? You
can apply techniques of analysis we have used on one passage, to
another, and get still more out of it. On the exam, you should explain
clearly how the evidence you are citing helps to support your
insights.
- Study Questions (before mid-term break
and in this file) flag important issues within the material we are
studying. Typically they are fairly open-ended: they encourage you to
think through the implications of our material, and explore the
connections you find. Exam questions will suggest a tighter focus, in
the interests of being possible to answer within the confines of an
in-class exercise. But if you have been thinking about the issues
raised by class discussions and the study questions, and noting
passages of our texts that provide important evidence, you will be well
prepared to write concrete, specific, persuasive essays on the exam.
- Assessment on the exam will look for familiarity with the material
to the extent that you need to know what you're talking about in order
to say meaningful things about it. But the main emphasis of the
assessment will be on the skills of literary analysis and
expression. Be sure to distinguish clearly between what the text
actually, literally, says, and what the text means - then
explain how reasoning takes you from one to the other.
Looking ahead: Study Guide for Exam 2
Friday 2 November
From today's class:
- CONGRATULATIONS! You have completed the second examination.
- Keep thinking about the exam questions: in an even-more-perfect
world, what more could you say about these topics?
For tonight's reading:
- How does the opening of the Aeneid situate itself in
mythological tradition? On whom does it focus attention first, so as
to orient the audience? What familiar figures are concerned? What
information is supplied?
- Who is Aeneas? What is he doing? What does he think about his
activity and his present circumstances?
- Who is Dido? What is she doing? How does she receive her guests?
- Which gods are concerned in the action of the Aeneid? Why?
What outcomes do they seek? What are they prepared to do to promote the
outcomes they desire?
Monday 5 November
From today's class:
- Compare and contrast how Vergil introduces his composing-and-performing
of the Aeneid to how Homer introduces his composing-and-performing
of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
- In what ways does Vergil invoke Homeric tradition, so as to imply
continuity between what Homer did and what he is doing?
- In what ways does Vergil suggest he is operating differently from Homer?
- Compare and contrast the cultural background of Homer's epics and of
Vergil's Rome: to what general differences do Vergil's differences from Homer
correspond? Think of cultural trends
in
understanding epic poetry as a literary tradition,
in
heroic legend as material for story-telling,
in the
western Mediterranean as a place, and
in Roman
history as a context.
- How do fate and power-relationships among the gods promise to figure in
the events whose story the Aeneid sets itself up to tell? How conflicted
is the world of the gods over Aeneas's fate? Compare and contrast to divine
concerns for the actions of the Iliad and of the Odyssey.
- How does Aeneas regard his fated future and its relationship to his past - both
personally within himself, and as his people's leader? Continue
to track this question as the Aeneid progresses.
- Compare and contrast Dido's circumstances and attitudes, as of the time
when the Aeneid first introduces her, to Aeneas's.
For tonight's reading:
- What account does Aeneas give of how the Trojan Horse was brought into
Troy? Who does what to promote the idea of bringing the Horse into the city?
Who objects? What happens to decide the question?
- What goals does Aeneas pursue during the last round of fighting, now
within Troy? What goals does he pick for himself? How does he come to change
goals, when he changes: what does he change to, and why?
- What happens to
Priam? to Helen?
to Creusa?
Wednesday 7 November
From today's class:
- What different levels of causation does Aeneas identify, or give
information that allows a reader to identify, for the Sack of Troy?
- What patterns of thought and actions does Aeneas highlight
among the Greeks? How does his version interpret the Sack differently
from how a Greek perspective might interpret it? Consider especially the
interpretations we have seen in Homer's epics:
anchor your analysis in concrete details portrayed
by texts.
- What patterns of thought and actions does Aeneas highlight among
the Trojans? What values and other character-traits does this episode
ascribe to the Trojan people? (They are also, for Vergil, the Roman
people-to-be.)
- What other causes operated to cause the Sack? What larger patterns
do they help shape?
- Why does Aeneas suggest he kept trying to fight on Troy's behalf?
What values and attachments does he embody? What considerations change
his mind?
- Compare and contrast the deaths of Laocoon, Priam, and Creusa. What
actions cause their deaths, as Aeneas's narration portrays them? What
emotions attach to their deaths - what do the deaths each contribute to
Vergil's explanation for the end of Troy, and to his portrait of Aeneas?
Identify concrete details of the text that support your interpretations.
For tonight's reading:
- Track Aeneas's landfalls in his Wanderings. Where do the Trojans go?
What do they hope to find, or try to do, at each site? What do they find
and do?
- What encounters in Aeneas's Wanderings give Aeneas information about the
future? How clear is the information he receives? How does he go about
interpreting it: what kinds of authority does he consult, and what
considerations shape his thinking?
Friday 9 November
From today's class:
- What happens, along the course of the Wanderings of Aeneas and the
Trojans, that helps determine where they are going? How and why do these
events change the Trojans' plans? How do they change the nature of the journey?
- In what ways do different landfalls of the Trojans re-play parts of
their own national past? What ideas about the past and its viability do
the events of these landfalls suggest? What elements of the past echo?
How do these echoes enrich interpretation of the Trojans' ongoing experiences?
- In what ways do different landfalls of the Trojans re-play parts of
epic tradition? What ideas about heroic epic do the events of these
landfalls suggest: into what Homeric (or other) parallels are Aeneas
and the Trojans cast? How do these parallels enrich interpretation of
experiences within the context of the Aeneid?
- How does the course of the Trojans' Wanderings, understood chronologically
(Book 2 - Book 3 - Book 1), change the position of leadership Aeneas
occupies? What factors cause the nature of his "job" as leader to change?
For tonight's reading:
- What does Dido want? Why: what forces shape her desires? What
circumstances make her desires change? How does she reconcile old desires
with new ones?
- What does Aeneas want? Why: what forces shape his desires? Does he
change in his desires? What causes him to change the course of his actions?
Can he reconcile old desires with new ones, or desires with necessary
actions?
Monday 12 November
From today's class:
- Compare and contrast Aeneas's time in Carthage to the stopping-points
of Odysseus's Wanderings where he has the prospect of remaining permanently.
- How similar or how different are the prospects: what does Vergil
suggest Aeneas stands to lose or gain by staying, as compared to what
Homer suggests for Odysseus? How do the prospects for either hero
compare to his long-term goals, as otherwise established in the epic?
- What forces control Aeneas's having the possibility of staying permanently
in Carthage, as compared to what Odysseus? Whose agency does Vergil show
operating? What resistance and what counter-agency does it encounter?
How does this picture of why Aeneas stays or goes characterize Aeneas and
his fate?
- On whose emotions does Vergil focus, at what points of Aeneas's stay
in Carthage, as compared to Homer's handling of Odysseus's stays at the
various stopping-points of his Wanderings? How does Vergil's emotional
focus color interpretation of this episode?
- What future would a Roman audience have recognized within Dido's curse?
What did it mean for Roman history and identity? How does Vergil's portrait
of Dido and this episode of the Aeneid connect with Roman self-imaging?
For tonight's reading:
- What is the occasion of the games in Book 5? What sports are competed in?
How are the contests determined? Compare and contrast to the funeral-games for
Patroclus in the Iliad.
- What do the Trojan women do while the male Trojans are competing in the
games? Why? What stops them?
- Who leaves Sicily, and who stays? Why?
Wednesday 14 November
From today's class:
- How do the games in which male Trojans compete in Book 5 of the
Aeneid look forward to future Roman cultural practices?
As we work through the whole Aeneid, continue
noting how Vergil treats such aetiological anticipations: what emphasis does
he give them? Why would they matter to a Roman reader?
- How do the games in which male Trojans compete in Book 5 of the
Aeneid work through themes of competition and reconciliation? How do the
games effect social integration - both within their own framework and beyond?
In what ways does Vergil show the games operating to help heal the Trojans'
grief at various losses?
- In what ways do feelings the Trojan women express in Book 5 correspond to
emotions Vergil also suggests male Trojans share? What insights does he gain
for his poem by looking to the women to express them? Why does he suggest this
expression comes in a gender-determined channel?
- How do the remedies offered for the women's feelings address the causes
of distress that the women identify?
For tonight's reading:
- What goals does Aeneas come to the Sibyl in order to pursue? What sort of
a figure is she? How does she help to pursue them?
- How does Vergil depict the underworld to which and through which the
Sibyl leads Aeneas: what does it contain? how is it organized? whom does he
see there? what interactions with the dead does he have? Compare and contrast
to Odysseus and his experiences in the Land of the Dead.
Friday 16 November
From today's class:
- Compare and contrast Aeneas's viewing of the gates Daedalus built
with his viewing of
the doors to Juno's sanctuary in Carthage,
with his viewing of
the Underworld, and
with other moments
when Aeneas stands looking at things. What ideas about looking, as opposed
to acting, does Vergil appear to be developing? What ideas does he appear to
be developing about art as an object of looking?
- Why do Misenus and Palinurus matter to Aeneas's visit to the Underworld?
Compare and contrast them to Elpenor in the Odyssey: how is Vergil
developing his Homeric precedent? What new ideas does he add?
- Analyze the symbolism Vergil packs into
the Golden Bough and
the Ivory Gate. How do
these elaborated artefacts relate to his narrative?
- What does Aeneas's visit to the Underworld achieve: what does he learn?
what does he do? how do the figures he encounters relate to him? why does
this visit matter to the story of Aeneas's mission to settle in Italy?
For tonight's reading:
- Into what
extended-family dynamics does Aeneas enter when he encounters Latinus: who
plans what for whom? What relationships connect these people? What ancestry
stretches back behind them to inform their identity now?
- How does Latinus receive Aeneas and the Trojans? What factors does he
identify as important to their relationship?
- What does Allecto do to cause trouble: what forces does she mobilize,
by what means, to what ends?
- Among the Italian forces, note the general types of characterizations
and connections Vergil identifies, and in particular the figures of
Mezentius,
Turnus, and
Camilla.
Monday 19 November
From today's class:
- In what ways does Vergil mark Book 7 as a new beginning to the
Aeneid by devices of literary form and epic convention? In what
ways does Book 7 function as a new beginning thematically?
- What motifs associated with Dido in Book 4 does Book 7 re-play?
How do these echoes create connections between the events of Aeneas's
stay in Carthage and of his arrival in Italy? What do they encourage
a reader to expect?
- What analogies to the Trojan War do characters in the Aeneid
draw, as Aeneas and the Trojans arrive in Italy? What expectations do
the characters seem to be drawing from the likenesses they perceive?
Compare and contrast to your own sense of how the Aeneid is
developing in relationship to the Iliad and its back-story: how
are the characters' unique roles in this story influencing the way they
interpret the past and form expectations?
- In what ways do points of the narrative in Book 7 look ahead to
Roman social and cultural institutions? How would these connections
resonate for a Roman reader of the Aeneid?
For tonight's reading:
- What information and instructions does the River Tiber give Aeneas?
Compare and contrast to other information and instructions Aeneas has
received about his mission.
- Who is Evander? Where does Aeneas meet him? How does he treat
Aeneas? What information does he communicate to him - about what topics?
- What does Venus request of Vulcan, and how does he treat her request?
What gets produced? Compare and contrast to similar scenes in the Iliad.
- What relationships connect Evander, Aeneas, and Pallas? To what other
constellations of people in the Aeneid can this trio and their
relationships be compared meaningfully?
Happy Thanksgiving!
Monday 26 November
From today's class:
- Compare and contrast Homer's emphasis in the Odyssey on
hospitable reception of individual travelers with the welcomes offered
to Aeneas and the Trojans by Dido, Latinus, and now Evander. What different
emphases is Vergil building in these scenes of welcome, and how do they
relate to his concerns in the Aeneid overall?
- To what patterns of behavior previously established in the Aeneid
does Evander conform - what other characters constitute partial parallels
for him and his interaction with Aeneas? Trace the parallels, comparing and
contrasting points of similarity and difference. Why is Evander's being
Greek, specifically, an important component of his performing these functions
- in view of the
Trojans' past and in
view of the Romans' future? Consider both broad and specific elements of
Greek identity in Greek and Roman epic and culture.
- How does Aeneas assess the arms Vulcan forges for him? What does he
appreciate? What does he fail to appreciate? How does this episode compare
to other moments of art-appreciation in which Vergil depicts him?
For tonight's reading:
- What happens to the Trojans' ships? Why? How do those who see the event
react?
- What do Nisus and Euryalus initially set out to do? What further purposes
do they add on as they go? How do their actions work out? Why? What is at stake
for the Trojans in each phase of their operation? What Homeric precedent does
Vergil seem to be evoking with this episode - how similar and how different
is his variation?
- Compare and contrast Vergil's battle-scenes to Homer's in the Iliad.
- What does Ascanius do for the first time in the battle of Book 9? How does
his action work out? What Homeric precedents does Vergil invoke, to what effect?
Wednesday 28 November
From today's class:
- How do episodes of the war of Trojans and Italians re-play and alter
elements of episodes in the war of Greeks and Trojans at Troy? How do
characters identify themselves with Trojan-war precedents, and what expectations
do they draw from their identifications? How much validity does Vergil imply
for their identifications and expectations? What other factors condition
the application of these parallels?
- How could a strictly rational analysis of goals, risks, benefits and losses
weigh up Nisus's and Euryalus's expedition: what did they achieve? What other
considerations does Vergil introduce into the problem of assessing the expedition?
Compare and contrast Vergil's emotional assessment to his treatment of other
episodes of the Aeneid.
- To what extent is Ascanius/Iulus yet able to play an adult role in the war?
For tonight's reading:
- How do the gods assess current events in the war between Italians and Trojans?
What considerations move them? What policies do they make?
- Compare and contrast the figures of Pallas and Lausus: who are they? how do
they come to be participating in the war as they do? what acts do they perform and
what qualities of themselves do they display? what happens to them? how do others react?
- What character does Mezentius show of himself on the battlefield? Compare and
contrast to the description Evander reported of him in Book 8.
Friday 30 November
From today's class:
- How does Vergil emphasize the fact that Pallas is Evander's son, in connection
with his aristeia and death? Why does this fact matter so much: how does it
connect with other emphasis in the Aeneid on the relationships between
fathers and sons?
- Compare and contrast to Zeus's conversation with Hera, in the Iliad, about
Sarpedon, with the following scenes that evoke it: what ideas about divine connections
with the human realm does Vergil pick up from Homer? how does he modify them?
- Juno's request to preserve Turnus's life for a while; with what other Iliadic
precedents does this scene also resonate, with what additional implications?
- Hercules' reaction to Pallas's prayer for success; with what other Iliadic
precedents does this scene also resonate, with what additional implications?
- How does Mezentius substitute love for his son Lausus for what a Roman would
have considered the normal and proper network of social and religious relationships
and responsibilities? In what ways does the narrative show this substitution mattering
to Mezentius's
actions in life, as ruler and as warrior, and
to
Mezentius's death?
For tonight's reading:
- What does Aeneas do with Mezentius's arms? The object he constructs and the dedication
he makes with it constitute a very particular cultural institution of the Roman world.
(This passage uses the term "trophy", from a Greek word for a victory-monument constructed
at the point where the line of battle broke and was "turned", yielding the victory.) What
attitudes get attached to it? Where else have we seen the concept of such a trophy evoked?
- How is Pallas mourned? On whose reactions does Vergil focus? What ideas do these
characters emphasize?
- Who is Drances? What sentiments about the community and its fortunes does he express?
- Trace Camilla's aristeia and the reactions it generates at divine and human
levels. What ideas about gender and the wild countryside of Italy does she seem to
represent?
Monday 3 December
From today's class:
- Trace the patterns of grief in the Aeneid, as individuals die in connection
with Trojan/Roman destiny. What emotions do the deaths arouse
in Vergil's other
characters? in
Vergil's readers? How do Vergil's
accounts of the deaths produce these emotions? What ideas about war and death and
national purpose does Vergil seem to be exploring - both within the story of the
Aeneid and beyond it? Be able to analyze specific instances in concrete detail.
- What kind of a force in communal decision-taking does Drances represent? How do
personal and public motives interact to produce his political opinions? On what bases
of personal and public interest does Turnus criticize Drances' political opinions?
Why does Vergil include such a character?
- Why does Latinus's attempt to make a compromise fail? What ideas about communal
decision-making do his proposal and its failure present in action?
For tonight's reading:
- Trace how Turnus sets himself up for his final conflict with Aeneas: what purposes
does he embrace? what opposition does he overcome? why?
- Who is Juturna? What does she do? Who authorizes her actions? How far does the
authorization extend? How does her involvement in action affect her emotions?
- What terms for combat does Aeneas set? How are his emotions involved in the action
of war?
- What final conditions does Juno demand?
Wednesday 5 December
From today's class:
- Trace the course of agreements and violence in Book 12: what impulses work for
peace, and what impulses disturb it? What do the individuals who promote violence
want, whether they are causing violence deliberately or not? How do their actions
operate (in accordance with their will, or not) so that they promote violence: what
responses do their actions generate in others, and why?
- What insights into Turnus's attitudes and actions in war are suggested by the
interactions between Juturna and Turnus? Compare and contrast with what Turnus's
interactions with other characters suggest about him.
- What insights does Vergil suggest into the way(s) Aeneas assesses his own actions
in the war?
- What techniques does Vergil, as an epic poet, use to portray a character's
interiority?
- What assessment(s) of war and heroism does Aeneas's perspective suggest, in the
context of the Aeneid's action? Does Aeneas's assessment seem to change over
the course of the epic, or the book; if so, how does it change and what causes it
to change?
For tonight's reading:
- What sort of an epic is Vergil's Aeneid? What kind of a story does it tell?
What emphases does it make in telling that story? What techniques does it use to tell
its story? Compare and contrast to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey: in what
ways does Vergil follow Homer's example, and in what ways does he make changes?
- What sort of a hero is Vergil's Aeneas? What kinds of concerns, relationships, and
actions characterize him as an individual focus of attention within the Aeneid?
Compare and contrast to Homer's Achilles, and other major warriors, within the Iliad
and to Homer's Odysseus within the Odyssey.
Looking ahead: Study Guide for the Final Exam.
