THE MAKING OF THE SHIELD:INSPIRATION AND REPRESSION IN THE AENEID

Abstract

The shield of Aeneas at the end of Book 8 is the culmination of the poem's ‘propaganda', the political climax of the Aeneid. We can read the ecphrasis in optimistic mode, as Hardie and Binder did, for example; or like Gurval and Putnam we can try to cast a pessimistic light even on this passage that is so obviously encomiastic and ‘ideologically sound'. However, what I shall be concerned with in this paper is not so much the shield itself as what Vergil has to say on his own composition of the shield, on the motivation of the artist in writing this encomiastic passage, on his ‘inspiration', or (if you prefer) on the ‘constraints' which compel him to deliver the ecphrasis. In my view Vergil gives us not only the ‘propaganda' of the shield, its mannered distortion of history, its praise of those in power, together with the critical reactions to that ‘propaganda' made out by pessimistic critics; he gives us also some metapropagandistic reflections on his writing of the shield as a piece of ‘propaganda' and encomium, an illustration of the forces that drive an artist to write a piece of this sort (that is, his ‘inspiration'), and he gives us some thoughts on the nature of the distortion and repression that are in operation here.

The Forging of a God: Venus, the Shield of Aeneas, and Callimachus’s Hymn to Artemis

“…2.10.11. 35 On Vulcan as a poet, see Casali 2006, who argues that Vulcan is analogous to Vergil and that the seduction scene can be read as "metapropagandistic reflection on his writing of the shield as a piece of 'propaganda' and encomium, an illustration of the forces that drive an artist to write a piece of this sort (that is, his 'inspiration')" (185). For arma virumque as an epic marker, see Conte 1986: 70-77 andBarchiesi 1997: 16-17. Venus Genetrix as well as Aeneas's transition from reluctant hero to future god.…”

‘Unbounded Views’: Incomplete Ekphrasis and the Visual Imagination in Virgil

“…64.Cf. Harrison (2001), 89, who seems to conflate these perspectives by casually moving from Vulcan's prophetic knowledge to ‘“omniscient” viewpoint…of…the Roman reader’; see also Gransden (1976), 162, and Casali (2006). …”

VIRGIL'S CARTHAGINIANS ATAEN. 1.430–6: CYCLOPES IN BEES’ CLOTHING

“…12 Virgil's readers, as critics have long recognised, see what Aeneas cannot, yet there is much more to this privileged vision than has thus far been perceived. 6 Note 'the association of populare and praeda in two successive lines', with Casali (1999) 208 n.14. 7 Wigodsky (1972) 53.…”

“…On readings 'in the light of history', see above all Horsfall (1973-4), but also Kraggerud (1963), Clay (1988), A. Barchiesi (1994), , Casali (1999), Schiesaro (2008).…”

“…1.730–4 and a ‘window allusion’ to Homer Od . 9.389–94: see Farrell (1991) 243–5; Nelis (2001) 343–4; Casali (2006) 197–203 (on Aen . 8.449–53); Mac Góráin (2009) 6–7.…”