ENGL 217
Prof. G. Steinberg

Response Paper:  Aeneid, Books IV-VI

Book IV of the Aeneid is probably the most famous part of the whole poem.  In it, the poem reaches a climactic moment.  Focus a lot of your attention on Book IV, but don't neglect the other Books entirely.

Choose one of the following areas as the focus of your response paper:

1. How do humans and the gods interact in Book IV?  Are the gods like the gods in the Odyssey?  What do the gods value in the Aeneid (as opposed to in the Odyssey)?  What motivates them (especially in their transactions with mortals)?  How do mortals respond to the gods and their motives?  How do the gods' decrees affect mortals?
2. What do you think of Aeneas in Book IV?  Is he a tragic figure, forced against his will by the gods to be great?  Is he a cad, who abandons Dido without cause or decency?  Is he a glory-monger who dumps Dido out of a self-seeking sense of the glory of Rome and the state?  Is he a good leader, who puts aside his personal needs for the sake of his people (even people as yet unborn)?  What does Aeneas teach us about Virgil's Roman values?
3. Book V divides into two halves -- the men's sporting event and the women's desperate arson.  Why would Virgil put these two episodes together in one Book?  How do they relate to one another?  What do they tell us about Virgil's perceptions of men and women?  What motivates men?  What motivates women?  What does Virgil seem to think about women?  Is he right?
4. Compare and contrast Aeneas' descent into the underworld in Book VI with Odysseus' experience in Book XI of the Odyssey.  What does Odysseus learn from the dead?  What does he talk about with the dead?  What does Aeneas learn from the dead?  What does he talk about with the dead?  What do we learn about Virgil's values based on the similarities and differences between his poem and the Odyssey?  (And keep all of this in mind for when we get to Dante later in the course, who also takes a trip through the underworld and learns from the dead.)