Before completing this assignment, you should read the following: “Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Literature,” pgs 18-21 (background material)”Virgil,” pgs 960-964 (background material)from Bo

by


 Before completing this assignment, you should read the following:

  • “Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Literature,” pgs 18-21 (background material)
  • “Virgil,” pgs 960-964 (background material)
  • from Book I, read lines 1-49 (the invocation)
  • from Book VIII, read lines 1-167

Once you finish reading those selections, select and answer one of these prompts (please use complete sentences; your response should be a short paragraph):

  1. The opening of Virgil’s epic [“I sing of warfare and a man of war” or “ I sing of arms and of the man”] is a skillful allusion to Homer’s Iliad [“Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles”]. Both rely on nouns. Discuss how the two openings work/function/interact in both texts.
  2. Just as Homer used the first lines of The Iliad and The Odyssey to announce the main themes of those poems, Virgil presents the two main themes of the Aeneid in the first line. What are these two central themes in The Aeneid?
  3. What universal force is responsible for Aeneas’s sufferings as an exile (see line 3)? In accordance with this universal force, what is the purpose of his sufferings?
  4. Explain the reasons for Juno’s hatred of the Trojans.
  5. Compare and contrast Homer’s description of the shield of Achilles in the Iliad (XVIII.572ff.) with Virgil’s description of the shield of Aeneas in the Aeneid (VIII.24ff.).
  6. Define/Explain/Show significance of, etc., in a brief paragraph one of the following terms:
    1. Romans
    2. Mos Mairom
    3. Penates
    4. Roman Way
    5. Public vs Private ideals
    6. Stoicism
    7. Epicureanism

For this assignment, I prefer that you answer these questions on a word processor, review and revise your work, save your work, and then copy and paste your text to the discussion board. Also note, it’s best if we spread around to cover all of these questions, so if you aren’t one of the first three to answer a question or don’t have anything new to add, move on to a different question. Each response is time stamped, so responses to questions that have been answered more than three times that don’t move the discussion forward will be penalized.