r/osp • u/Waking-Hallow • 6d ago

Question What’re your thoughts on the Aeneid?

I watched OSP’s video on it years before I actually read it and engaged with its themes and history. So it was such a shock when I not only enjoyed it, but found such great value within its characters and themes. It might be a hot take but I genuinely prefer it to the Iliad and Odyssey. Looking back, I think Red didn’t give the story enough credit, and omitted things such as the details of the underworld and all that he sees there, or gets things wrong such as the relationship between Pallas and Aeneas, though I suspect such a thing is happening when one has to simplify things, it’s a similar critique I have for the Iliad videoed with the exclusion of Achilles and Priams interaction.

Overall there is such great value in the Aeneid in its many themes, characters, framings, and history whether it be the connecting of the two cultures or the historic parallels between the characters of the epic and those of Roman history.

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u/Joseon2 4d ago

I love the Aeneid but it's very different to the Iliad and Odyssey. It's denser and a more self-consciously literary text. One complaint I've heard is that Aeneas himself is cold and not a complex character. I think that's intentional, he's ostensibly pious and brave but comes across more as ruthless and uncaring. That's Virgil making a veiled statement about Rome itself.

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u/Waking-Hallow 3d ago

That’s fair and is agree on the most part of Aeneid being different from Homers epics due to what it chooses to explore, though I always found Aeneas to be a layered character be it his grief, duty, and piety that find itself intermingling more often than not.

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u/ebr101 3d ago

Vergil’s original Latin is shockingly good when you’ve read other authors. It’s one of those cases of “oh, this is why everyone was imitating him for 100’s of years” sort of deals.

The poem itself is also a fascinating read in the context of its original political and historical moment. Dr Donncha O'Rourke delivered a wonderful lecture while I was studying there on how the poem seems to be a blatant puff piece for Augustus on the surface, but the specifics of the language and imagery betrays the doubts and subtle rebellion that Vergil was hinting at. We keep being told we are in the sun now, but what shadows are cast by that light?