VIRGIL AND MARLOWE: PRESENT, METAFICTION AND AENEAS
A hero of incredible reputation and strength on the one hand, a man with no identity or motivation on the other. Virgil’s Aeneid and Marlowe’s Dido Queen of Carthage depict the same hero as the lead character, yet their Aeneas’s differ from one another. Although both Virgil and Marlowe use more or less the same characters, similar events and metafictional devices, Virgil strives to convey the imperial ideology into the text by prioritizing future over present while Marlowe criticizes such approach and emphasizes how crucial present is.
In Virgil’s Aeneid, imperial ideology is given by using the present time both as a result of the past and as a gateway to future. Present, in this sense, is only a means to provide the necessary framework for the justification of the excruciating stories behind the foundation of the Roman Empire. The sufferings and ordeals Aeneas has to bear are necessary for the well-being of the Roman state –an ideology Machiavelli , much …show more content…
The language he uses to describe Rome in different passages are so similar -in the sense that they not only emphasize the power through words like “wide” and “extend” which provide horizontality, but also incorporate verticality into the meaning, create and foster a certain hierarchy, and place Rome on top- that one could hardly object to the pro-imperial ideology in the work: “all that now/the imperial power of Rome has lifted to the skies,” , “watch,/ my son, our brilliant Rome will extend her empire far/ and wide as the earth, her spirit high as Olympus” , or “and many losses/ he bore in battle too, before he could found a city,/ bring his gods to Latium, source of the Latin race, / the Alban lords and the high walls of
A hero of incredible reputation and strength on the one hand, a man with no identity or motivation on the other. Virgil’s Aeneid and Marlowe’s Dido Queen of Carthage depict the same hero as the lead character, yet their Aeneas’s differ from one another. Although both Virgil and Marlowe use more or less the same characters, similar events and metafictional devices, Virgil strives to convey the imperial ideology into the text by prioritizing future over present while Marlowe criticizes such approach and emphasizes how crucial present is.
In Virgil’s Aeneid, imperial ideology is given by using the present time both as a result of the past and as a gateway to future. Present, in this sense, is only a means to provide the necessary framework for the justification of the excruciating stories behind the foundation of the Roman Empire. The sufferings and ordeals Aeneas has to bear are necessary for the well-being of the Roman state –an ideology Machiavelli , much …show more content…
The language he uses to describe Rome in different passages are so similar -in the sense that they not only emphasize the power through words like “wide” and “extend” which provide horizontality, but also incorporate verticality into the meaning, create and foster a certain hierarchy, and place Rome on top- that one could hardly object to the pro-imperial ideology in the work: “all that now/the imperial power of Rome has lifted to the skies,” , “watch,/ my son, our brilliant Rome will extend her empire far/ and wide as the earth, her spirit high as Olympus” , or “and many losses/ he bore in battle too, before he could found a city,/ bring his gods to Latium, source of the Latin race, / the Alban lords and the high walls of