Memory in Vergil's Aeneid

Creating the Past

• Author(s): Aaron M. Seider,
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Pages: 241
• ISBN_10: 1107292522
  ISBN_13: 9781107292529
  
• Language: en
• Categories: History / Ancient / General , Literary Criticism / Ancient & Classical , Literary Criticism / Poetry , Poetry / General ,

Description:... Tracing the path from Troy's destruction to Rome's foundation, the Aeneid explores the transition between past and future. As the Trojans struggle to found a new city and the narrator sings of his audience's often-painful history, memory becomes intertwined with a crucial leitmotif: the challenge of being part of a group that survives violence and destruction only to face the daunting task of remembering what was lost. This book offers a new reading of the Aeneid that engages with critical work on memory and questions the prevailing view that Aeneas must forget his disastrous history in order to escape from a cycle of loss. Considering crucial scenes such as Aeneas' reconstruction of Celaeno's prophecy and his slaying of Turnus, this book demonstrates that memory in the Aeneid is a reconstructive and dynamic process, one that offers a social and narrative mechanism for integrating a traumatic past with an uncertain future.