LIT 231
Prof. G. Steinberg

Response Paper:  Aeneid, Books IV-V

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 Book V.

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

1. 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 own personal interests and needs for the sake of his people (even generations as yet unborn)?
2. What do you think of Dido?  Is she a strong woman brought down by passion, a sympathetic victim, a shameless hussy, a tragic pawn, a crazed stalker, a loose cannon, a pathetic loser?  How does she fit or not fit the expectations and ideals of womanhood described by Susan Wood in Imperial Women?
3. What do you think of Juno and Venus in Book IV?  How do their behavior and motives compare to those of Homer's gods and goddesses in the Odyssey?
4. 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?  How do the women in Book V compare to the ideal of womanhood described by Susan Wood in Imperial Women?