Instruction
Length is: 5 pages double spaced.
Assignment is:
The Aeneid crafts multiple instances of carefully balanced, and also utterly crucial, interpretive problems: the entire poem seems to be saying one thing, if you see the matter one way, and some (radically incompatible) other thing, if you look at it the other way. For this essay, choose one of these core issues, and argue determinatively in favor of one side. Examples (others are possible; please check with me!) include:
1. Jupiter's governance of the cosmos: is he working out a supremely rational master plan, or making a series of chaotic, self-serving individual decisions, for morally dubious reasons?
2. The character of Turnus: vicious thug, or wronged local hero with a number of admirable qualities?
3. The fate of Dido: she gets what she deserves, or a sympathetic, essentially innocent person cruelly played with by forces outside her control?
4. Nisus and Euryalus: selfish, murder-drunk fools, or the bravest, most heroic, most loving pair of warriors ever?
5. The killing of Turnus: justice served, or cold-blooded murder?
Two stipulations, whichever question you answer:
1. The entire piece is an argument. State your claim, then defend it with evidence.
2. Do be sure to show awareness of what the "other side's" core arguments would be; do be sure to meet these arguments with your own counterarguments.