I happened
to read Lucan in my own time outside of the school syllabus (Virgil’s Aeneid as
set text) and to honest it was a much better read IMHO – it provides the
flipside to the Imperial propaganda which runs through the Aeneid – where the
Lucanian vision of the future Imperium is brutal, bloody and one of great
destruction and horror, past present and future giving the lie to the wonderful
paradise that is promised after the dust settles on Rome’s enemies within and
without. I have to be honest here and say that I found Aeneas a bit too ‘moral’ for my liking and almost a tad
dorkish (perhaps like the Odyssey but with Tom Cruise in it instead of a much
better but more ‘flawed’ actor and storyline).It struck my innocent schoolboy
mind as all a bit too Roman Hollywood I suppose and the Pharsalia, like Tacitus is a very interesting contrast to the
orchestral greatness of ‘eternal Rome the savior of all mankind’ portrayed in
the Aeneid. It would be an interesting future project to contrast the two works
– the light and dark sides of the Roman principate.
If
the two works were rock groups, I would imagine the Aeneid as Queen’s Greatest
Hits and the Pharsalia more Black
Sabbath. The former quite brilliant, sparkling, flashy, erudite but a little
bit shall we say…conservative and safe. Whereas with Lucan’s work we have lines
like a Tony Iommi solo at 200Decibels shearing off your synapses and hammering
your poetic eardrums into submission – it doesn’t pull any punches and it
lowers its sophistication level knowingly for brutal effect – much like the
opening riffs of Paranoid or War Pigs.
Even
today listening to radio broadcasts and podcast commentaries on the Aeneid one
still gets the impression that many modern readers/pundits are dazzled by the
sheer magnificence of the work as poetry and as a result have swallowed the
propaganda a little too much. It’s often glossed over – and since there was not
such a distinction in ancient times between the roles that poetry and prose
played in official and public use at the time, this becomes an even more important
point, namely, to look at the works purely in aesthetic terms is at the risk of
misunderstanding their real impact at the time and thus their deeper historical
and political significance. I really feel that if Latin texts were taught in
this way even at A Level they would be far more engaging. The fact that Virgil
is presented or almost pre-presented as ‘great’ to a beginner classicist as I
was at the time – it produced in me a distinct lack of genuine tangibility or
engagement with the work, which was/is a great pity.
Until
recently scholarship shied away from looking at Virgil’s work in this more
penetrating way however it is certainly a valid point to look more closely at
why the Aeneid was written and with what audience in mind. The image of
Maecenas once again looms Saatchi-like out of the shadows. To be fair, Lucan
(60s AD) did sort of pinch a lot of ideas from Virgil and subvert them for his
own literary ends (often to great effect) but then again couldn’t it be posited
that in its own way, Book VI of the Aeneid is based thematically on Greek philosophical
thought relating to the afterlife and in literary terms borrows heavily from
the Odyssey?
I
have been reading an article from Classical
Philology Vol. 67, No.1 (January 1972) by Friedrich Solmsen-The World of the
Dead in Book VI of the Aeneid (JSTOR http://www.jstor.org) who describes the loose and shifting tripartite structure of
Book VI, namely into Homeric, Moral and Philosophical parts which in turn are
meant to represent the primitive, moral and rational facets of human nature.
The underworld as Aeneas discovers is a place of all time, Past, Present and
Future where he is guided through the horrors to meet his father and Dido once
again.
These
two meetings put Virgil into a new category of epic, since they succeed in humanizing
and adding great realistic individual detail – this is something that doesn’t
happen on quite so a personal and emotional level in the underworld meetings
in the Odyssey (upon which they are based).
There
are in such individualized encounters highly emotionally charged and extremely
moving lines of poetry (e.g. the contrasting encounters with Anchises and Dido)
which in turn inspired Dante , who used this Virgilian map of the underworld as
well as the concept of the recycling of souls, in his own masterpiece of the
Divine Comedy (Hell in particular, Purgatory in general). Virgil’s model of the
underworld with its emphasis on generalized Judgment , punishment and justice
stands in contrast to earlier Greek depictions where the retribution is meted
out upon specific divine renegades. In the Aeneid, the underworld is where all
humanity is judged and if good enough may eventually pass to Elysium or remain
forever in Tartaros, the darkest deepest pit where dwell the original renegades
against divine order and reason. You can easily see where later concepts of
heaven and hell came in the later fleshing out of later medieval Christian eschatology.
The
great innovation here and the groundbreaking development is that the underworld
of generalized judgment we experience with Virgil is also one of individuals;
the salvation or damnation of the individual soul is at stake and is brought
much closer to home and sharper focus that any previous ancient description.
This is just one aspect of his great genius as a poet, a truly revolutionary
innovation and an exciting fresh idea appearing for the first time in Latin
epic verse. Dante takes this concept much further but the essential original concept
is right here in Book VI and is a remarkable new step.
In
a further emotional encounter we also meet Marcellus as part of the Imperial
Roman future that for him will never be, golden imperial hope and deeply
mourned by all levels of society as he apparently was– again a tragic and
fascinating use of telescoping time back and forth in this realm of the dead to
remind Aeneas of his past and his future trials and tribulations, and ultimately
his destiny of founding hero of Rome. And all this in the most exquisite hexameter
verse.
Aeneas
finally emerges safely from the underworld, refreshed, rebooted even and ready
for anything – he is going to have to be with a warrior the likes of Turnus
just around the corner and his trials far from over. See you all on Sunday to
discuss this work together with book IV of the Georgics. Salve atque vale!
