HUM 2 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Simile, Political Statement, Aeneid
Document Summary
Books ii and iii are aeneas"s performance at dido"s court. Enables the hero to tell his own story: to present ideals of heroic behaviour keyed to language and rhetoric. The story of the trojan horse becomes a story of rhetoric and argument. Story about how people use language to sway option or action. Story of national identity (trojan-ness; greek-ness) keyed to how language is used. Aeneas;s own story of his family: the loss of creusa; the rescuing of the father and the son; the moral ambiguity of aeneas at the close of book ii. Language: echos of book ii opening in book iii close: infandum unspeakable. See idea of heroic behaviour, less real, but more rhetoric and the emerging idea of being heroic, roman. Less the story about the craft, more of debate around the horse. The purpose of telling the trojan horse story, is to convince dido that. Aeneas comes from a culture that is straightforward and direct.
