The Primacy of Vision in Virgil's AeneidOne of the masterpieces of Latin and, indeed, world literature, Virgil's Aeneid was written during the Augustan "renaissance" of architecture, art, and literature that redefined the Roman world in the early years of the empire. This period was marked by a transition from the use of rhetoric as a means of public persuasion to the use of images to display imperial power. Taking a fresh approach to Virgil's epic poem, Riggs Alden Smith argues that the Aeneid fundamentally participates in the Augustan shift from rhetoric to imagery because it gives primacy to vision over speech as the principal means of gathering and conveying information as it recounts the heroic adventures of Aeneas, the legendary founder of Rome. Working from the theories of French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Smith characterizes Aeneas as a voyant-visible, a person who both sees and is seen and who approaches the world through the faculty of vision. Engaging in close readings of key episodes throughout the poem, Smith shows how Aeneas repeatedly acts on what he sees rather than what he hears. Smith views Aeneas' final act of slaying Turnus, a character associated with the power of oratory, as the victory of vision over rhetoric, a triumph that reflects the ascendancy of visual symbols within Augustan society. Smith's new interpretation of the predominance of vision in the Aeneid makes it plain that Virgil's epic contributes to a new visual culture and a new mythology of Imperial Rome. |
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... poem. The sightless Homer now becomes tactile: his realm visible, its aura breathable, and his voice, through Chapman, finally audible.Chapman's translation of Homer gives the reader a new vision of the poet, allowing Keats to extol and ...
... poem's telos. A quarter of a century ago, Michael Putnam made the powerful observation that throughout the Aeneid, ''words are replaced more regularly by deeds.''12 Virgil's poem obviously includes a number of speeches, a necessary form ...
... poem, too, reveals how a poet can overlay geographical and historical details to suggest the importance of the urbs as the setting of a love affair (2.5).22 Such examples demonstrate the Augustan texts' heightened emphasis on visual ...
... poem encompasses a subtle shift from rhetoric to vision as the primary means of conveying and gathering information.This shift is important becauseit informs Aeneas' decisions in theepic, from leaving Dido to killing Turnus.To support ...
... poem, W. S. Anderson notes Virgil's empathy and observes that the narrator's subjective comments reinforce the self-denying behavior of the characters and heighten the reader's sympathetic response.45 More important to this discussion ...
Contents
1 | |
Ruse and Revelation Visions of the Divine and the Telos of Narrative | 24 |
Vision Past and Future | 60 |
Hic amor Love Vision and Destiny | 97 |
Vidi Vici Visions Victory and the Telos of Narrative | 128 |
Conclusion Ante ora parentum | 176 |
Notes | 183 |
Bibliography | 223 |
Subject Index | 237 |
Index Locorum | 247 |