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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... Rhetoric ( Part 1 ) : Effete oratores 133 Drances and Turnus : Opposing Visions 139 Hercules and Cacus : Light , Darkness , and Diction 147 Failure of Rhetoric ( Part 2 ) : The Futility of Battlefield Entreaty in Books 10-12 152 Failure ...
... rhetoric where Hortensius , Cato , and Cicero had all delivered speeches . In comparison to the original Roman Forum ... rhetoric that clears space for vision to be the successor of speech , even as the visual qualities of the Forum ...
... rhetoric . " In the sixth book , Anchises tells his son that others will outstrip the Romans in rhetorical ability ( orabunt causas melius , 6.849 ) . Roman ora- tory fails to bring the peace that Anchises speaks about in the lines that ...
Contents
CHAPTER 2 | 22 |
Vision Past and Future | 60 |
Love Vision and Destiny | 97 |
Copyright | |
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