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You are here: Experts > Homework Help > Mark Twain > Literature > The Aeneid by Virgil
Literature - The Aeneid by Virgil
Expert: Tom Horne - 11/4/2009
Question
Hi there. Thank you in advance for your help. I am in a college world lit thru renaissance class and we just finished reading The Aeneid.
I have a paper due this Friday and I'm struggling with what direction to go in. My prof. suggested we pick a particular passage and argue a point about it. The paper can't be more than 2 pages long so he encouraged us to be sure the passage chosen can be looked in depth with that short of a paper.
Pre-renaissance lit is not my forte and I've struggled though Medea and The Odyssey but for whatever reason I'm stuck on this one. Can you suggest to me a passage you find meaningful? I almost wish this teacher gave us more restrictions with the papers as I spend most of my essay writing time trying to figure out WHAT to write about.
Thank you so much.
Answer
Ok, here is what I would suggest, but unfortunately I don't have a copy of the book with me to give you the specific line numbers, and chapter numbers etc. One choice would be the passage when Aeneas is sailing away from Dido. He loves her, and it breaks his heart to leave her, but he knows what his fate is (to go to Latium) and he must forsake love to fulfill his destiny. The passage is one of the saddest in all of literature, and it shows that man is helpless to follow his own will when the gods have other plans for us.
Another idea is a passage when Juno says something like, "If I cannot chnage the will of the Heavens, then I will raise Hell." Basically, she has tried to persuade Jupiter and the other gods to rally against Aeneas, but she is finding no allies. So instead, she acts maliciously on her own. This compares to anyone disgruntled, and how they act childlike and/or with anger when they can't get their way. She tells the gods that since they won't help her, she will just go out and cause devastation on her own.
I'd stick to the first one if I were you. It's a sad passage and we can all relate to it. Your point would be that it's useless to try to fight our own destiny.
i hope this helps. Feel free to write back with further followups.
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