Dec 26, 2009

Aeneid | Social Sensitivity

Vergil was a poet living in a violent era who created a national poem about an earlier time that was equally as turbulent. As a result, the Aeneid features many scenes of violent combat that may affect some readers' sensibilities. The violence that occurs is quite bloody, but none of the many deaths seems gratuitous. Violence is tempered by Aeneas's abhorrence of war, which is well documented throughout the epic. Vergil perceives injury and death to be part of the price that human beings must pay for glory, fame, and high achievement. He tells the "truth" about an often brutal...