Culture Analysis: Virgil

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Culture Analysis Paper 3: Virgil

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Within the selected reading, there are quite a few major and minor characters, those most notable being : Juno (Mack 473), Aeneas (Mack 475), Venus (Mack 475), Jupiter (Mack 478), Ascanius (Mack 479), Dido (Mack 477), Achatës (Mack 478), Ulysses (Mack 483), Minerva (Mack 490), Laocoön (Mack 490), Sinon (Mack 485), Hector (Mack 491), Pyrrhus (Mack 498), Priam (Mack 476), Anchises (Mack 504), Anna (Mack 508), Mercury (Mack 512), Deiphobë (Mack 529), Turnus (Mack 537) , Diomedes (Mack 477), Vulcan (Mack 536), Pallas (Mack 477), and Juturna (Mack 541) . Each lived within the time period of ancient Rome’s foundation, with the theme of the story centering on men and women who struggled intensely to build a mighty nation. As for the genre of the story, it is categorized as an epic poem, written in dactylic hexameter, which reads as a dramatic narrative.

In Book 1, Virgil, the author of the Aeneid, called upon the muse (goddess of poetry and inspiration) to aid him in telling the story of Aeneas (Mack 473-475). The epic began with the Trojan fleet sailing from Sicily, seven years after the fall of Troy. The goddess Juno goads the god of wind, Aeolus, to unleash a great storm on the travelers, causing their ships to wreck near the city of Carthage. Though the goddess Venus appealed to the god Jupiter for their lives, he assured her in prophecy of what would be their glorious future. Shortly thereafter, Venus, appearing to her son Aeneas disguised as a Carthaginian huntress, told him of Queen Dido and the settlers from Tyre who had formed the colony at Carthage, surrounded by potentially hostile peoples.

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