Study questions on Vergil’s Aeneid

Book 1

The beginning of the poem: how many times does it begin? What epic formulas (cf. http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Terms/epic.html) does it employ? What spin does Vergil put on these formulas or conventions? How does Vergil himself figure here?
The actors: who is in charge here? Why isn’t it (or is it?) Aeneas? How does the singer/poet characterize Aeneas in book 1?
The storm: is there an allegory (http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Terms/allegory.html) here? What does/can a storm represent, metaphorically or allegorically?
Carthage: early Roman history involves importantly a series of wars with Carthage (http://www.barca.fsnet.co.uk/) -- how does Carthage figure here? What about their temple construction and the illustrations on the bronze doors?

Books 2-3

Aeneas’s background story: How does this fit into the Iliad/Odyssey as you know them? (If you don’t know them you could consult http://www.classicnote.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/iliad/shortsumm.html and http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/odyssey/)
Importance of the scene with Laocoon? (note that this incident provokes important art and art-history responses: a famous Hellenistic sculpture group http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/laocoon/laocoon.html, seen by the founder of art history, J. J. Winckelmann http://www.southalabama.edu/philosophy/coker/phl_348/winckelmann_reflections_on_the_imitation_of_greek_works_(excerpt).htm as the expression of classicism’s “noble simplicity and quiet grandeur”; and the literary critic G. E. Lessing, whose book on the limits of art and poetry is titled Laokoon.
Handling of Aeneas’s family in the aftermath of Troy’s destruction: the father (Anchises), the son (Ascanius/Ilus), the wife (Creusa)—what’s important? what epic formulas involved? what plot implications?
Various false Troys on Aeneas’s trip: what’s wrong with each of them? What about the extended comparison with Odysseus’s trip in Odyssey books 9-12? (if you don’t know the Odyssey you can start with http://www.classicnote.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/odyssey/summ3.html)

Book 4

This would be a good place to work out a Vergilian/Roman system of gender identities: Can you make Aeneas the characteristic Roman male? Dido as a characteristic opposite for that? (un-Roman, un-male)? What other attributes go with these gendered identities? (rationality/emotion, activity/passivity, bee-like/ant-like, rhetoric/silence, stability/mobility, landlocked/seafaring, political/social, cool/warm, hunting/gathering/farming, pious/irreverent, solar/lunar, odd/even)
In Vergil’s time the Roman general Antonius, one of Triumvirs along with Octavius/Caesar Augustus, while administering Rome’s interests east of Italy, took up with Cleopatra the Queen of Egypt. How does Book 4 figure that history? You could see Shakespeare or http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/cleopatra/ .

Book 5

The funeral: Roman views of the dead and mutual obligations to/of them.
The games: compare Iliad book 23, look ahead to Roman families to be established based on these athletic contestants. Specifically the boat race: what values are represented by the contestants and the events within the race. You could think also about boxing and archery—what do these events teach, ethically or historically (why the flaming arrow at the end—you can go ahead and say that it’s “empire without end” as in book 1’s prophecy.
The women’s rebellion: return to the gender dichotomies of book 4, apply them to these proto-Roman women. You could here summarize Juno’s role in the first half of the Aeneid (book 1 storm, book 4 “wedding”, here)

Book 6

Big-time transcendent journey theme here: Gilgamesh http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MESO/GILG.HTM goes to the Flood-surviver Utnapishtim, Odysseus (see above) goes to the Dead, later Dante http://dante.ilt.columbia.edu/ takes it up with Vergil guiding his pilgrimage through Hell to Purgatory (others take him on through to Paradise). Comparisons? Implications of the comparisons for Roman national character?
Interaction with the Sibyl: who’s she? (in Roman history, Petronius/T. S. Eliot, art history including Michelangelo on the Sistine Chapel ceiling)—transmission of voice, Sibyl analogous to Vergil as recipient of Muse’s story?
Who’s in the Underworld? Famous sinners, Anchises, future Romans—characterize them. Anchises’ injunction to the Romans: “rule the nations”—a mission statement? a vision statement? What are the criteria for success in this mission?

Books 7-8

Casus belli (look that up if you don’t know it): killing of a pet deer, compare the starts of wars like the Trojan, Persian (acc. to Herodotus), Peloponnesian (acc. to Thucydides), Iraq.
Hera/Allecto intervention: is this some kind of absolute evil? Or just an over-the-top form of the gender dichotomy of book 4 and the storm scene in book 1? Why can’t we or Vergil settle this matter yet?
Catalogue of Italian fighters: how well does it fit the epic requirements (http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Terms/epic.html again)? Does it have Environmentalist overtones at any point? Or Ruskin’s “pathetic fallacy” and the standard tropes of Pastoral? (http://www.hearts-ease.org/cgi-bin/termsn.cgi?data=library&letter=p)
The Arcadian allies—More Pastoral (cf. http://www.skidmore.edu/academics/lsi/arcadia/)? What’s the larger meaning of the Hercules/Cacus story?
The armor, mainly the shield: compare Iliad book 18 (see above) for the context, think about the book 6 lineup of Romans for the future. Battle of Actium was the denouement of the struggle between Octavius/Augustus and Antony/Cleopatra—remember book 4 on Cleopatra/Dido.

Books 9-12--we're making "short shrift" of these, but they are important.

In the night sortie of book 9, two male lovers (Nisus and Euryalus) we've seen before in the footrace of book 5 undertake a heroic act--or is it? How do they play within/against gender stereotypes we've learned earlier in the poem?
Jove/Jupiter and Juno, having sparred before, come to agreement starting at Fitzgerald's line 1069 (hexameter 790 or so) of book XII: track their differences and the substance of their agreement--its importance for Rome and Roman self-understanding.
The "warrior girl" of book XI--Camilla: deal with her in the gender-stereotype context--another Dido, done in by femininity in the patriarchy? Some kind of Jessica Lynch figure?
The close of the poem: the antagonist, Turnus (track him a bit from book VII), the reason Aeneas has to fight him, the reason Aeneas kills him willfully and in anger, the meaning of Turnus's spirit's groan at the end "for that indignity".