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Odyssey vs Aeneid
- Odyssey vs Aeneid
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Odyssey vs Aeneid
badlands > August 31st, 2018, 05:10 PM
What are your views on these epic poems? Are they similar or different in your point of view? -
Odyssey vs Aeneid
august > August 31st, 2018, 05:52 PM
Well, obviously they are different in that they are in different languages, and developed over a thousand years apart from each other. And the Odyssey was likely one poet's version of a folk
story cycle that a thousand different guys told variations of, and the text we have now is probably what someone remembered of his version from a few hundred years earlier, i.e. it could have
been amended and modified significantly - while The Aeneid was definitely the work of one man, who was for all intents and purposes commissioned to write a Roman national epic that celebrated
the current political regime.
But they both follow the same structure, although it's intentional - Vergil intentionally copied Homer. It's an over-simplification, but basically the first half of the Aeneid mirrors the
Odyssey (hero guided by the gods roams the Mediterranean, encountering lustful women, magical monsters, and hostile enemies) and the second half mirrors the Iliad (two
rival armies and their diverse allies struggle in a battle for supremacy.)
Vergil tries to incorporate as much ancient Greek culture and tradition as he can, but time and again, what he describes is contemporary Roman culture, just featuring people with Greek names. -
Odyssey vs Aeneid
Michael > September 1st, 2018, 01:13 PM
Although Homer's works are nationalistic (in the sense that they celebrate the achievements of the Achaeans), "The Aeneid" wasn't really a nationalistic poem. It was kind of nationalistic but attempted to connect the ancient Greek myths with Roman origin myths, sort of like a modern historical fantasy novel.
And I use that comparison only out of laziness. "The Odyssey" was obviously part of a long tradition of story-telling that branched out and included the Roman poets, but I think Homer was trying to keep things "in the family", whereas Virgil was trying to expand the family. Ironically, Virgil chose the character of Aeneas (a Trojan), almost as if to insult the Greeks (in my opinion) by saying, "We rose above you."
The character first appeared in the "Hymn to Aphrodite", a Greek poem composed in the Homeric tradition (although it's date of composition is not known and may be later than Homer).
I think Virgil knew what he was doing, and he wasn't simply trying to extend the Epic Tradition of the ancient Greeks. He was appropriating their myths, something Roman writers often did. -
Odyssey vs Aeneid
august > September 2nd, 2018, 03:09 PM
I think we're saying the same thing.
I think appropriating the Greek myths and incorporating Roman themes would be the structure of creating a national Roman epic. Vergil and all literate Romans were fluent in Greek too, but he chose to write it in Latin. And of course the Emperor was paying him to do it, the Emperor's nephew and heir appears as a character in Book 6, and the Emperor's family is proclaimed as the direct descendants of the protagonist and his mother, the goddess Venus.
I wouldn't really call "The Odyssey" nationalistic, however, since it focuses on one man, a bunch of make-believe lands, and a tiny island kingdom that had no great impact on the larger area of Greece... and all the characters are from an earlier civilization that no longer existed by the time it was written down.
Vergil did do a great job at incorporating a dozen or more local origin stories - I hesitate to call them myths, since they were consciously created, exactly like a historical fantasy novel as mentioned above, by Latin-speakers who heard Greek epics and wanted to claim some connection - into one cohesive narrative. He even brings in characters like Diomedes from "The Iliad" to boost the idea of Roman supremacy. Although by his time, this was for the Romans' benefit - Greece was a sleepy backwater that had been under Roman domination for centuries, and most Greeks were slaves or at best employees of Romans.
Vergil considered other topics - Romulus for example - for his national epic (those two words were about all he was asked for) but Aeneas allowed him to tie directly into the era of Homer, and visit other locales around the Mediterranean just like Odysseus did. -
Odyssey vs Aeneid
Michael > September 9th, 2018, 07:09 PM
I guess I was thinking of "nationalistic" being something like, "Here is a great story from our past and I will retell it in grand eloquence." So if Virgil had done the Cincinattiad (or whatever), I would consider that to be a true "nationalistic" work. Equivalent to us making a movie about, say, George Washington. But a modern American equivalent of the "Aeneid" (in my opinion) would be like us making a movie about the ancient American ancestor Robin Hood (implying or arguing that his legendary deeds contributed directly to our existence as a nation).
But I could be overthinking it. -
Odyssey vs Aeneid
august > September 10th, 2018, 11:33 AM
Yep, I get exactly what you are saying. And the Cincinnatiad still needs to be written! :bounce: :crazy: :hellohands: :jester: And that's what a Romulus epic, or a Rome vs. Etruscans epic would have been.
I think Vergil ultimately opted for Aeneas so that he could more directly connect with the scenes, subject matters, etc. of his Greek predecessors. In other words, it would have been harder to come up with a
reason for Romulus or Cincinattus to visit the Underworld, encounter Scylla and Charybdis, etc. and there were no existing traditions of them interacting with the gods, which was another epic tradition.
The incentive to promote the Aeneas connection was a big big deal though. Italians including the Romans had been claiming for centuries that they were descended from the Trojans, but there weren't any folk tales
or poems handed down through the ages detailing any of this (because *cough* they made it up :laugh: ) and so Vergil was sort of reverse-engineering the origin story. Which included
gathering together variations, including explaining that other settlements elsewhere - like Segesta in Sicily - were Trojans who got tired early on, and settled there, while Aeneas headed
on to his destiny. And the Greek Evander who famously settled the Palatine Hill centuries before any Romans moved there was in fact a buddy of Aeneas, whose descendants decided to settle where
Evander used to live.
And there was a real-life practical motive too. No one really believed any of the mythological stories anymore, but the Julian family tried to bring that back in a very conscious, political way. Julius Caesar
dedicated a major public forum and temple to "Venus Genetrix," i.e. Venus the Ancestor of Rome....but of course the implication was just the ancestor of the Julians. And Augustus followed suit with a temple
to "Mars Ultor," i.e. Mars the Avenger, i.e. he avenged the honor of Rome...but it really meant avenging the assassination of Caesar. So when Vergil came up with a nice tricky ret-conned etymology - Troy
was also called "Ilium," named after King Ilus, and so that could have been an alternate name for Ascanius the son of Aeneas... and "Ilus" in Greek could in those days have been "Iulus" in Latin (it couldn't
have, but no one was literate enough to know) and that's the name of the founder of the Iulian - i.e. Julian - clan. So basically "my patron is the direct descendant of Aeneas, the son of the goddess Venus,
and therefore rules by divine right. See, Jupiter says it right here, in the lines I just wrote for him." :poke: -
Odyssey vs Aeneid
Michael > September 17th, 2018, 05:41 PM
You raise a good point about the lack of folk tales. I am sure that came up when we studied the "Aeneid" in my college days but it's been a while since I took those notes.
The creation of a nationalistic epic certainly doesn't have to draw upon existing folklore or mythology but it would be easier to sell, I suspect. John Jakes (who started out writing science fiction and fantasy in the 1960s and 1970s) did write an American epic series of novels for the bicentennial celebrations in the mid-1970s. I still don't know how he got the nod to do that series (or maybe he was just the first one to propose it?) It didn't really become a lasting national epic but it did spawn a couple of TV movies and/or a mini-series as I recall.
It takes a lot of story-telling to create something that is remembered as a national epic. I could probably count "national epics" that I recognize as such on one hand. -
Odyssey vs Aeneid
august > September 17th, 2018, 06:09 PM
Yep, I remember those very well. He ended up moving to my home state of South Carolina at some point after that, possibly when he was writing or doing research for his next series
about the Civil War, North and South. It too became a mini-series, a good bit of which was filmed on location in Charleston. A friend of mine got his SAG card for having
a couple of lines in a duel scene in that, in fact.
As far as getting the nod, we would assume he or his agent just pitched it to his publisher - he had plenty of historical novels to his credit before then to, dating back to the 50's.
He could have been under contract anyway, so assuming they were up to or above his usual standard, they'd then have been printed either way. But of course, they are just historical fiction,
epic in scope like a thousand other novels - Gone With the Wind, Les Miserables, etc. - but not poetry, not supernatural, etc. Everything from Johnny Tremaine to
Howard Fast's April Morning to the stage musical 1776 had already covered this ground, with varying degrees of success. As far as a connected series of novels about grand
adventures in American history, James Fenimore Cooper had definitely done that much earlier with his Deerslayer novels (there's some actual name for those but I forget it) an I'm sure there were many others.
But of course none of the above were commissioned and paid for by the sitting leader of the nation, or feature his family members as characters, or provide scenes for
the decoration of his tomb.
Following Rome, though, I'm not sure that there have been too many cultures that consciously attempted to promote any kind of national sense of values and virtues, until the 19th and 20th
centuries when dictators - and elected officials often called dictators by their foes - began using that as a way to unite their supporters. But there are a fair number of national epics in the sense of folk tales
gathered together and considered a shared national or cultural tradition, just like The Iliad and The Odyssey: Beowulf, Roland, El Cid, the Arthurian and Robin Hood cycles, Sigurd/Siegfried,
the Norse Eddas (too lazy to look up the actual names of the most famous versions) etc. etc.
Note: Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha is generally considered an American epic, in the traditional sense of poetry, mythology, and heroics. And Milton always claimed Paradise Lost was an
epic poem about Christianity. -
Odyssey vs Aeneid
Michael > September 17th, 2018, 06:49 PM
There is Finland's "Kalevala", which was based on old folklore and songs. And I think the Robin Hood legends and King Arthur legends count toward national epics (perhaps representing the first step in the evolutionary process). Sir Howard Pym's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood certainly made a lasting impression. I loved it when I was a kid.
But you're right. Something is missing from the formula. Unless Congress passes a law authorizing someone to create a national American epic there probably will never be one. And maybe we'll never see another "Aeneid" anyway. -
Odyssey vs Aeneid
august > September 18th, 2018, 09:21 AM
Well we have a national poet laureate, right? But yeah, no one is writing epic poetry these days. And definitely not reading it.
Plus, in the current political climate, no one acknowledges the government as representing the nation any more, but rather as either
"our side" that is in power, or "their side" that's in power. (Which of course was why Augustus spent decades trying to erase that mindset, although
it was by firmly asserting that there was only one, completely harmonic unified Roman nation. And, um, if you wanted to live in it, you needed to agree. But I digress.. )
That said....the musical "Hamilton" has won every award it has been eligible for, has earned universal
acclaim, deals with broadly heroic themes including warfare and the creation of a nation, addresses. weighty issues including
what it means to be American....and is written in verse! -
Odyssey vs Aeneid
Michael > September 22nd, 2018, 09:53 PM
Not sure I'll ever see "Hamilton" but I did watch and enjoy "The Crossing". That almost qualifies as a national epic ... or not.
Watch "The Crossing" from YouTube
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For anyone who is unfamiliar with this made-for-TV movie, it stars Jeff Daniels as George Washington and told how he led his ragtag fugitive fleet ... um, the demoralized Continental Army across the Delaware river in mid-winter to launch a successful attack on Trenton, NJ.