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. |
From inside the book
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... aspects of this book with Lowell Edmunds, Professor of Classics at Rutgers, whose feedback on the first chapter was ... aspect of my life would not be possible, I wish to express eternal, heartfelt gratitude. I dedicate this book to her ...
... aspect of Virgil's style offers an interesting line of inquiry and will generally inform my discussion, the overall scope of this study is broader. ''Focalization,'' a component of the theoretical framework of the late Don Fowler, has ...
... aspects of Augustan society.Virgil's use of vision, therefore, ultimately signals a communication shift that the social climate of Augustan Rome had already begun to embrace. Based on these observations, for the current undertaking I ...
... aspects of Merleau- Ponty's phenomenological theory to reformulate point of view as a kind of active and participatory vision of the world on the part of characters within the narrative. Inasmuch as some of Virgil's characters are well ...
... aspect of his role as voyant-visible. With regard to physical sight, however, Aeneas, as the voyant-visible, interacts compassionately with some of those he sees, such as the survivors of the shipwreck in Aeneid 1; to others he responds ...
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 |