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
Results 1-3 of 32
... temple dedicated to Venus Genetrix . In this , the first of the imperial fora , public and private were merged , for the structure cele- brated Caesar both as public official and as the heir of the Julian gens de- scended from Venus ...
... temple . From reading " Caesar , " he thinks the structure even greater . The young man vowed this temple when he dutifully took up arms : he had to make such a start as our leading citizen . " ] Ovid's description of Mars ' vantage ...
... temple was particularly Augustus ' responsibility , for it was built on Augus- tus ' property and was financed from the spoils of war . " See also Paul Zanker , The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus , trans . Alan Shapiro ( Ann ...
Contents
CHAPTER 2 | 22 |
Vision Past and Future | 60 |
Love Vision and Destiny | 97 |
Copyright | |
6 other sections not shown