Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Book I

Dear SM Summer Reading Group,

Hopefully by this point you've had the opportunity to start reading and are well on your way. I wanted to point out a few things about Book I.

Need to Know

  • Aeneas is Trojan. He fled the city if Troy once the Greeks took it after a ten year siege. Clever Greek Odysseus snuck Greeks within the walls of Troy with his Trojan Horse. Aeneas and his men barely got out in time (more about that in Book II).
  • Juno brought on the storm that kicks off the action. She's miffed that she has been unable to prevent Aeneas from reestablishing the Trojan race in Italy. She is a supporter of the Greeks and the city of Carthage. Athena got to punish Ajax, why can't Juno punish Aeneas (ll.50)?
  • The goddess Venus is Aeneas' mother. That's why she comes to help him when he lands in Carthage. She's in disguise and he does not know that the young huntress with whom he is speaking is actually his mother until she leaves. She's kind of helicopter momming in Book I especially with the quick total make-overs that she does for Aeneas and his son Iulus/Ascanius. She's just trying to be helpful.
  • Dido is the Queen of Carthage. In fact, she's building Carthage right now (ll.520). Dido originally fled from Tyre in the Levant (Phoenicia) to found Carthage in North Africa. Does that fated quest sound familiar? What a good person for Aeneas to get to know at this point in his journey...
Poetry
What have you noticed about the style of the writing now that you have begun reading? Any favorite lines or passages? How about the similes? Did you catch those? What is being compared?

Old but True
What stuck out to you as relatable human experience? You probably have not been sent on an epic quest to found a new city yet (not sure about the incoming students in our group), but have you ever thought that something in your life was just "meant to be"? What role does fate, destiny, or design have in your life, if any? How about Aeneas as a leader? Is he human or is he epic? Does he have traits that we might hope for in a leader in the modern sense of the role? Does he have flaws?

Roman
Jupiter/Jove comforts Venus by reading her the fate that has been spun for Aeneas and the Trojan people. He tells her that their race, their family line, the Roman people, will be limitless in space and time (ll.233). It's hard not to think about the fact that this prophecy, written by Vergil in the 1st century AD, was either commemorating achievement or setting an expectation for the city and it's people. What are your initial impressions of the Roman tradition? What does it mean to be Roman and from where might this feeling come?

You've also had a great introduction to some of the major Roman gods in Book I (Juno, Neptune, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury). What do you think about them? How does an artifact of "mainstream" Roman culture represent divinity? How might a Roman reader think of these gods?

No comments:

Post a Comment