Aeneid Group

Question:

anoch
anoch
Student
College - Senior

In the "Aeneid", how much fatalism appears in the narrative of Aeneas? In what lines is it most clearly expressed?

In what lines is it most clearly expressed?

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Posted by anoch on Friday December 12, 2008 at 6:42 PM and tagged with aeneas, aeneid, fatalism.

Answers:

  1. anzio45
    anzio45

    eNotes Editor

    Unfortunately I gave away all my Virgil stuff just this week to somebody who wants to revisit the Latin studies of his youth, so I can't offer you any lines for the second part of your question. On the general point, however, I would say that Aeneas's narrative is heavy with fatalism from beginning to end. He awakens from a dream - in which Hector is directing him to leave his doomed city of Troy and establish a new homeland for his people - to find the Greeks destroying Troy. By the end of Book 2 he has begun his journey to the west. In Book 4 the love affair with Dido is also fated to end in tragedy as the gods, and specifically Mercury, again direct Aeneas to resume his journey to his destined homeland in Italy. In Book 6 his visit to the underworld again confirms his destiny. In the second half of the Aeneas the Rutulian leader Turnus somewhat takes on the role of doomed protagonist that Dido has in Book 4: his fate is sealed because destiny has ordained it so. To some extent, I feel, the character of Aeneas is unsatisfactory because the hand of fate lies so heavily on him and on the whole story, but that's a different argument.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/aeneid/

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    Posted by anzio45 on Saturday December 13, 2008 at 2:18 AM