Book IV

For General Knowledge of Book 4 (in English and Latin)

Organization

1. Plot this book as a tragic drama. List the acts and scenes. Indicate the main and secondary characters. Define the central problem and show its resolution.

2. Show how Dido’s love for Aeneas gives the organizational structure to the book.

The Gods

1. ‘While important action is dignified by divine intervention, human motivation is always sufficient explanation for any action which occurs.” Discuss this opinion in relation to the love affair of Dido and Aeneas.

2. Comment on the attitude of the gods towards humans as revealed in this book.

3. Analyze the trickery used by both Venus and Juno.

Human Characters

1. What is the significance of the Dido episode in the Aeneid as a whole?

2. Discuss the Dido episode in relation to the later wars with Carthage.

3. Show how the images of vulnus and ignis play a major part throughout Book 4 in characterizing Dido.

4. Show the change in the love of Dido for Aeneas in the words of address she uses to him.

5. Analyze the direct encounter between Dido and Aeneas. What charges does Dido make? What is Aeneas’ response? What does Dido offer as a countercharge?

6. Show the progression of Dido’s irrationality.

7. Why is Dido’s suicide predictable?

8. Compare and contrast Dido and Anna.

9. Show how Dido’s character is further defined by Anna.

10. Describe Aeneas’ dilemma. Why does he choose as he does?

11. It is sometimes said that Aeneas is unfeeling in his treatment of Dido. Agree or disagree with this opinion using references from the text to support your argument.

Style

1. Analyze Vergil’s use of sound in the marriage scene.

2. Analyze Vergil’s use of color and sound in the death scene.

2. What does the personification of Rumor add to the narrative?

*Background

1. Compare and contrast Dido and Medea, Circe, Calypso.

2. Brief reports on the Phoenicians, Carthage, the Punic Wars, Stoicism, sorcery and superstition in Vergil’s Rome.

 * supplemental

Source:

Topics for the “Aeneid”

Author(s): Richard T. Scanlan

Published in: The Classical Journal, Vol. 78, No. 4 (Apr. – May, 1983), pp. 350-359                                    1