I want to share with y’all my first paper for my language tutorial. Mr. Tomarchio assigned me (1) anything at all about the first choral ode in Antigone, or (2) anything at all about the play Antigone as a whole, or (3) anything at all about anything at all in the St. John’s College Program.
My paper was therefore about Aeneas. I haven’t blogged enough to let the world know how profoundly I enjoyed Virgil’s Aeneid. I think, as a piece of literature, it is the most stunning and brilliant piece I’ve ever read. To use a Tomarchian term, the “economy of images” is so impressive. I don’t think it’s even required to read the story to be swept away by the images of the poetry. For example:
It becomes only more stunning when the image of this Rage, Furor, which is pent up in the Augustan pax Romana described in this passage, is repeated subtly in the later war scenes. It’s a very dark text, but also very intriguing.
If you’d like to read my paper, which asks questions about fatherhood and is much less dark than the quote I’ve already provided, you may download it here.
I’m doing very well. My next seminar is on the second Tacitus reading of The Annals of Imperial Rome. Last seminar was on books I and II, but this is an even longer reading on III through VI. I’ll struggle tomorrow to finish it in time, I’m sure, but it will be a fun struggle. I’m enjoying Tacitus too, especially with the epic background of the same empire provided by Virgil. Tacitus is more explicitly cynical about the whole Roman Empire thing, as he should be, but their voices together match insofar as they’re distinctly not Greek, like most of what I read last year. It’s nice.
Time to sleep. I love y’all. God is good, all the time. He is blessing me in my studies and keeping me thankful for all that I have here.
My paper was therefore about Aeneas. I haven’t blogged enough to let the world know how profoundly I enjoyed Virgil’s Aeneid. I think, as a piece of literature, it is the most stunning and brilliant piece I’ve ever read. To use a Tomarchian term, the “economy of images” is so impressive. I don’t think it’s even required to read the story to be swept away by the images of the poetry. For example:
Which means, according to literal and elegant Fairclough: “the gates of war, grim with iron and close-fitting bars, shall be closed; within, impious Rage, sitting on savage arms, his hands fast bound behind with a hundred brazen knots, shall roar in the ghastliness of blood-stained lips.”…dirae ferro et compagibus artis
claudentur Belli portae; Furor impius intus
saeva sedens super arma et centum vinctus aënis
post tergum nodis fremet horridus ore cruendo.
It becomes only more stunning when the image of this Rage, Furor, which is pent up in the Augustan pax Romana described in this passage, is repeated subtly in the later war scenes. It’s a very dark text, but also very intriguing.
If you’d like to read my paper, which asks questions about fatherhood and is much less dark than the quote I’ve already provided, you may download it here.
I’m doing very well. My next seminar is on the second Tacitus reading of The Annals of Imperial Rome. Last seminar was on books I and II, but this is an even longer reading on III through VI. I’ll struggle tomorrow to finish it in time, I’m sure, but it will be a fun struggle. I’m enjoying Tacitus too, especially with the epic background of the same empire provided by Virgil. Tacitus is more explicitly cynical about the whole Roman Empire thing, as he should be, but their voices together match insofar as they’re distinctly not Greek, like most of what I read last year. It’s nice.
Time to sleep. I love y’all. God is good, all the time. He is blessing me in my studies and keeping me thankful for all that I have here.
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