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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... Katabasis 82 Site/Sight of Rome 90 Conclusion 95 chapter 4 Hic amor: Love, Vision, and Destiny 97 Aliud genus officii: Vision and the Second Favor 98 Viewpoints of Departure: Deception, Vision, and the Separation of Dido vii Contents.
... Dido and Aeneas 106 Fixos Oculos 115 Lauiniaque uenit 121 Conclusion 126 chapter 5 Vidi, Vici: Vision's Victory and the Telos of Narrative 128 Failure of Rhetoric (Part 1): Effete oratores 133 Drances and Turnus: Opposing Visions 139 ...
... Dido to killing Turnus.To support andexplicate this thesis, I will apply the philosophical formulations of the twentieth- century French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty to Virgil's principal character, Aeneas.25 My use of Merleau ...
... Dido's and Aeneas' vision aids in analyzing their relationship; both the way they perceive each other and the way they perceive their destinies ultimately cause the break between the two lovers, overriding any last-minute verbal appeals ...
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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 |