Paco Sze

How do the portrayal and evolution of Aeneas’s character differ or evolve from his Homeric correspondences?

Started Sept. 13, 2023

Abstract or project description

This essay seeks to explore the progressive portrayal of Aeneas relative to its Homeric correspondences in The Odyssey. Copious research has already been conducted on the transformation of Aeneas’s character in conjunction to overarching notions of destiny and free will. In this, the debate over the characterization of Aeneas has spawned various branches of interpretation in Vergilian scholarship over the course of the 20th and early 21st century. This essay seeks to critique and corroborate such interpretations of the characters of Aeneas and Odysseus by conducting comparative analysis through close reading of primary sources. Further, this work will investigate The Aeneid’s influence on Classical literature in its establishment of internal character and external circumstance, which has not been investigated adequately in Classical research. This analysis into the larger implications of the Aeneid further situates it as a milestone in the larger world of literature, and allows us to more holistically regard The Aeneid as a timeless, yet perpetually ambiguous, masterpiece.