Fathers and Sons in Virgil's Aeneid

Tum Genitor Natum

By M. Owen Lee

Subjects: Literary Criticism
Paperback : 9780873954518, 200 pages, June 1982
Hardcover : 9780873954020, 200 pages, June 1982

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Table of contents

Preface

I Introduction: The Death of Pallas

II Some Preliminary Considerations

Augustus in the Aeneid

The Proscriptions

Pietas

The Divine Machinery

III The Poem

Arma virumque

Conticuere omnes

Postquam res Asiae

At regina gravi

Interea medium Aeneas

Sic fatur lacrimans

Tu quoque litoribus

Ut belli signum

Atque ea diversa

Panditur interea domus

Oceanum interea surgens

Turnus ut infractos

IV Some Further Considerations

V Homer's Poems

VI The Failure of Aeneas

VII The Failure of Virgil

VIII The Undoing of Virgil's Failure

Notes

Indexes

Narrative summary of Virgil’s epic poem.

Description

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.

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.