Western Literature (Week8)

Aeneid

Author: Virgil

An ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid.

Summary:

The Aeneid is an epic poem that tells the story of Prince Aeneas of Troy.The story starts with the fall of Troy and tells about Prince Aenas and the survivors of Troy.  It contains all their adventures on their way to Italy.  It was written as a propaganda tale to justify Rome conquering other places.

• Aeneas

Aeneas flees burning Troy, Federico Barocci, 1598.

A Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Venus (Aphrodite). The Aeneid explains that Aeneas is one of the few Trojans who were not killed or enslaved when Troy fell. Aeneas, after being commanded by the gods to flee, gathered a group, collectively known as the Aeneads, who then traveled to Italy and became progenitors of Romans.

• Dido

 The founder and first queen of Carthage (in modern-day Tunisia). In the Aeneid, Dido and Aeneas fall in love by the management of Juno and Venus, however,  the rumour of the love affair comes to King Iarbas the Gaetulian. He prays to his father, Jupiter Ammon, to help him. Jupiter sends Mercury to separate Dido and Aeneas.Dido can no longer bear to live. She has her sister Anna build her a pyre under the pretence of burning all that reminded her of Aeneas.(though, according to Aeneas, they were never officially married.)

• Pygmalion

 In the Aeneid, he is the cruel-hearted brother of Dido who secretly kills Dido's husband Sychaeus because of his lust for gold. He is most familiar from Ovid's narrative poem Metamorphoses, in which Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved. Pygmalion married the ivory sculpture changed to a woman under Aphrodite's blessing.

- Pygmalion effect
the phenomenon whereby higher expectations lead to an increase in performance. The effect is named after the Greek myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved.

- Musical stage play"My Fair Lady"
My Fair Lady is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phoneticist, so that she may pass as a lady. The original Broadway, London and film versions all starred Rex Harrison.






- The story of Pygmalion and Galatea

The story of Pygmalion and Galatea is found in Greek Mythology, and in the famous work "Metamorphoses", by the great Roman poet Ovid. Their love was so unique that it is difficult to define it. But from this legendary love story, one thing is clear, man can never love an inanimate object with as much passion as he loves a living, breathing being. Love gives rise to desire and without this passion any love remains unfulfilled.

Saint Christopher

St. Christopher Carrying the Christ Child,
 by Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1485)

Saint Christopher's most famous legend, which is mainly known from the West and may draw from Ancient Greek mythology, tells that he carried a child, who was unknown to him, across a river before the child revealed himself as Christ. Therefore, he is the patron saint of travelers, and small images of him are often worn around the neck, on a bracelet, carried in a pocket, or placed in vehicles by Christians.