The Aeneid and The Odyssey

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Are there similarities between Homer's The Odyssey and Virgil's The Aeneid? There are many similarities that could be examined indepth. The lovers encountered in both plays can lead to the idea of ancient plagarism. The games held by the greeks and trojans are similar to the Olympic Games. The downfall of characters, cities or monsters can be seen often in many stories. Maybe rewriting history is the effort of a plagarist to cheat true historical events.

The lovers Aeneas and Odysseus encounter in either the Aeneid or Odyssey is vast and large. Aeneas is married to Creusa until they are separate by a sense of chaos. Odysseus is married to Penelope waiting patiently for his return. Both Odysseus and Aeneas could be found as cheating spouse and the women as prostitutes. The same could be said for their signicant lover Circe and Nausicca to Odysseus. While Aeneas is loved fiercely by the queen of Carthage, Dido, Aeneas pursued the relation from the start with Dido upon entering Carthage. When his eyes glanced upon her figure, he started to cheat on his wife. The same happens to Odysseus when he enters the domain of Circe to rescue his crew from remaining as animals. Odysseus would further his denial in adultery by lying with Circe in the same bed each night. Aeneas will lead Dido to cheat on her late husband’s wish of being alone. According to Edward Gutting, Dido’s faithfulness to her late husband would be counted as a loss to her undermining fame. Venus would displace and change her feelings into erotic ones from conjugal orientations. Dido’s passion with Sychaeus would be reignite with the recognition of Aeneas as the new lover. According to Gutting, not only is she feeling the erotic-ness but she is childless. And Cupid man...

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Works Cited

Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. D.C.H. Rieu. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.

Virgil. The Aeneid. Trans. W.F.J. Knight. New York: Penguin Books,

Bolton, Matthew J. “Literary Contexts in Poetry: Homer’s Odyssey”. Literary Contexts in Poetry: Homer’s Odyssesy. Great Neck Publishing. 2007 Literary Reference Center. Ebscohost. Chipola Lib., Marianna, FL. 2 February, 2010. http://web.ebscohost.com/

Bowra, C.M. and Bloom, Harold. “C.M. Bowra on the Monsters in the Odyssey”. Bloom’s Notes: Homer’s Odyssesy. Infobase Publishing. 1988 Literary Reference Center. Ebscohost. Chipola Lib., Marianna, FL. 2 February, 2010. http://web.ebscohost.com/

Schleiner, Winfried. “Aeneas’ Flight from Troy.” Comparative Literature 27.2 (1975): 97. Literary Reference Center Plus. Ebscohost. Chipola Lib., Marianna, FL. 23 March, 2010. http://web.ebscohost.com/

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