Imagery in Virgil's "The Aeneid"
Literature I
Imagery in Virgil’s “The Aeneid” Imagery can create a vivid imagination that lets a reader lose themself in picturing the words realistically. Writers and poets use images to appeal to our senses and evoke our emotions. Virgil is one of many who are known for their use of images throughout their works. He is famously known for his epic, “The Aeneid”. It is a story about a warrior’s journey in search of a new home after his home was destroyed. In Virgil’s literary epic “The Aeneid,” the use of imagery allows the reader to grasp an understanding of the events that take place throughout the story. Virgil uses different elements of nature as part of his imagery. Fire and flame are images that Virgil continuously uses throughout “The Aeneid”. Fire is used to describe events that are violent, emotional or dramatic. In Book II, Aeneas recounts his journey to Carthage to Dido. When he talks about the fall of Troy, the word “flame” is constantly used. The use of the word describes the destruction that the Greeks part took onto Troy during the legendary Trojan War. The emotional side of the word comes forth also because the fire consumes the Trojans’ possessions, loved ones, and memories that they cannot ever get back. Another use of fire as an emotion is when Aeneas says “now fires blazed up in my own spirit” (Virgil 968). Fire is used here to describe Aeneas’ anger and passion to avenge his city that is lost and to punish Helen for causing so much trouble for the city.
Not only doe Virgil use the element of wind throughout the story to give readers an understanding of the events happening, he also uses wind to represent an obstacle:
He gave the hollow mountainside a stroke, And, where a portal opened, winds in rank, As though drawn up for battle, hurtled through, To blow across the earth in hurricane, Eastwind and Southwind, then the wild Southwest with squall on squall came scudding down, Rolling high combers shoreward. (Virgil 933)
Imagery in Virgil’s “The Aeneid” Imagery can create a vivid imagination that lets a reader lose themself in picturing the words realistically. Writers and poets use images to appeal to our senses and evoke our emotions. Virgil is one of many who are known for their use of images throughout their works. He is famously known for his epic, “The Aeneid”. It is a story about a warrior’s journey in search of a new home after his home was destroyed. In Virgil’s literary epic “The Aeneid,” the use of imagery allows the reader to grasp an understanding of the events that take place throughout the story. Virgil uses different elements of nature as part of his imagery. Fire and flame are images that Virgil continuously uses throughout “The Aeneid”. Fire is used to describe events that are violent, emotional or dramatic. In Book II, Aeneas recounts his journey to Carthage to Dido. When he talks about the fall of Troy, the word “flame” is constantly used. The use of the word describes the destruction that the Greeks part took onto Troy during the legendary Trojan War. The emotional side of the word comes forth also because the fire consumes the Trojans’ possessions, loved ones, and memories that they cannot ever get back. Another use of fire as an emotion is when Aeneas says “now fires blazed up in my own spirit” (Virgil 968). Fire is used here to describe Aeneas’ anger and passion to avenge his city that is lost and to punish Helen for causing so much trouble for the city.
Not only doe Virgil use the element of wind throughout the story to give readers an understanding of the events happening, he also uses wind to represent an obstacle:
He gave the hollow mountainside a stroke, And, where a portal opened, winds in rank, As though drawn up for battle, hurtled through, To blow across the earth in hurricane, Eastwind and Southwind, then the wild Southwest with squall on squall came scudding down, Rolling high combers shoreward. (Virgil 933)
Cited: Ashley, A. M. "Poetic Imagery in Homer and Virgil." Greece & Rome. 4th ed. Vol. 2. Cambridge UP on behalf of The Classical Association, 1932. 21-28. JSTOR. Web. 17 Nov. 2013. . Keith, Arthur L. "Nature - Imagery in Vergil 's "Aeneid"" The Classical Journal. By Franklin H. Potter. 8th ed. Vol. 28. Classical Association of the Middle West and South, 1933. 591-610. JSTOR. Web. 16 Nov. 2013. . Nethercut, William R. "The Imagery of the "Aeneid"" The Classical Journal. By Franklin H. Potter. 2nd ed. Vol. 67. Classical Association of the Middle West and South, 1972. 123-43. JSTOR. Web. 16 Nov. 2013. . Virgil. "The Aeneid." The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. By Sarah N. Lawall. 8th ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 930-1023. Print.