Fathers and Sons in Virgil's Aeneid: Tum Genitor Natum

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SUNY Press, Jan 1, 1979 - Literary Criticism - 200 pages
In this book, M. Owen Lee provides a comprehensive narrative summary of Virgil's Aeneid and a personal account of his experience with the epic poem. Noting that Virgil is the writer most Latinists read early, live with, and often come to love late, Lee expresses a clear devotion to the poet's work and relates how it has touched him throughout his life. While most criticism of the Aeneid makes a distinction between what critics say and what an individual may respond to, Lee takes a unique approach by analyzing the epic story from his own point of view. He not only explores the extensive Virgilian tradition, but also looks at the work of other poets, as well as philosophers, artists, composers, and filmmakers in order to better understand the Aeneid. Lee concludes that Virgil's poem, with its unavailing fathers and dutiful sons, its ineffably sad view of a failed humanity and a flawed universe, still touches hearts and, in ways Virgil could not have foreseen, still affects human lives.

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Contents

Introduction The Death of Pallas
1
Some Preliminary Considerations
8
The Proscriptions
14
Pietas
17
The Divine Machinery
23
The Poem
30
Conticuere omnes
36
Postquam res Asiae
46
Atque ea diversa
77
Panditur interea domus
81
Oceanum interea surgens
93
Turnus ut infractos
96
Some Further Considerations
105
Homers Poems
119
The Failure of Aeneas
140
The Failure of Virgil
157

At regina gravi
50
Interea medium Aeneas
55
Sic fatur lacrimans
59
Tu quoque litoribus
68
Ut belli signum
72
The Undoing of Virgils Failure
168
Notes
177
Indexes
195
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About the author (1979)

M. Owen Lee is Professor Emeritus of Classics at the University of Toronto and the author of several books, including Death and Rebirth in Virgil's Arcadia and Virgil as Orpheus: A Study of the Georgics, both also published by SUNY Press.

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