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Intro to Latin Poetry

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Intro to Latin Poetry

Read the Latin lines and the English rendering below. Use evidence from the poem in your answers. The English is a close, readable rendering rather than a word-for-word translation.

A few opening lines of the Aeneid

Virgil’s Aeneid is an epic poem about Aeneas, a Trojan who travels toward Italy after the fall of Troy. It was written in Latin in the first century BCE. The poem’s opening announces its subject and hints at both war and a difficult journey. Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto. Readable rendering: “I sing of arms and the man who, first from the shores of Troy, came to Italy and the Lavinian shores, driven by fate, much tossed about on land and sea.”

Epic: a long narrative poem about significant events and heroic figures.

Lyric: poetry focused on a speaker’s feelings or thoughts.

Dramatic: poetry written to be performed, often using speech or dialogue.

Dactylic hexameter: a traditional six-foot verse meter used in Latin epic poetry.

Investigate the poem

Use the poem and the term panel above for Questions 1–10.

1.Which kind of poetry best describes the Aeneid? Choose one and support your choice with one detail from the passage.

Epic
Lyric
Dramatic

2.Match each term to the best description: epic, lyric, dramatic.

Epic
Lyric
Dramatic

C. Tells a substantial story involving significant events or heroes
A. Focuses on a speaker’s feelings or thoughts
B. Intended for performance, often with dialogue

3.In the opening words, what does the speaker say he will sing about? Give both subjects named in the English rendering.

4.Fill in the blank: Aeneas’s journey is described as being driven by .

5.True or false? The opening presents Aeneas’s journey as effortless. Explain your answer with a phrase from the rendering.

6.The opening says Aeneas comes from the shores of Troy and reaches Italy. What does this contrast suggest about the poem’s movement or plot?

7.Identify one image in the rendering that helps you picture the journey. What scene does it create in your mind?

8.The Latin uses the phrase “multum … iactatus,” rendered as “much tossed about.” What effect does this phrase have on the reader’s impression of Aeneas?

9.Dactylic hexameter has six metrical feet in a line and is associated with Latin epic. Why might a poet choose a recognizable, formal meter for a poem about a hero and a people’s origins? Give one reason.

10.Write one sentence explaining how the opening combines a large-scale subject (“arms”) with a personal focus (“the man”).