Virgil The Aeneid

The poet Virgil heavily influenced the history of Literature in Western Civilization. He was the first poet read in every Roman school, just as Homer was in Greece. Born the 15th of October, 70 B.C. Virgil’s was given the name Publius Vergilius Maroadmired Augustus. Urged by Emperor Augustus, Virgil wrote a book called the Aeneid glorifying Rome’s imperial achievements in which Augustus would find an honored place. Virgil wrote this national epic for ten years, but was unable to complete it before his death in 19 B.C. Virgil’s deathbed request was to have the Aeneid destroyed, but Augustus had his work completed and published; disregarding Virgil’s dying wish. The Aeneid is an epic poem about the story of Aeneas, the legendary founder of Rome,

In the Divine Comedy Dante journeys through Hell. The Aeneid and Divine Comedy share the common theme of separation, trial, victory, return, and reintegration. There are also many paralleling experiences the men have while on their expeditions. For example, each man uses a classic Epic device of invoking the Muses to help them in the telling of their stories and while on their journeys and both they both meet historical figures. Finally, Aeneas and Dante were limited in the amount of time that they may spend in the

Virgil’s influence: Paradise Lost

In addition to Dante’s Divine Comedy, there are numerous examples of Virgil’s influence on Milton’s Paradise Lost. Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The epic poem Paradise Lost parallels with Virgil’s epic poem in characters, style/structure as well as an identical theme presented in each literary work.

Milton modeled his Adam and Eve after Virgil’s character Aeneas and Dido. Repeatedly mapping Aeneas’s words and actions; the dialogue exchanged between the couples in each book are similar. For example, when Eve recalls her first meeting with Adam and her initial in him she uses these words: ‘back I turnd, Thou following cryd’st aloud, Return fair EVE, Whom fli’st thou? whom thou fli’st, of him thou art, His flesh, his bone;’ Virgil’s parallel that stunningly, the reader is invited to observe relates to what are, as he himself says, Aeneas’s last word to Dido, then a shaft in the underworld of the Aeneid: ‘Stay your step and withdraw not from our view. Whom do you flee? This is the last word Fate suffers me to say to you.” From the dialogue exchanged between the each couple the parallels are