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Virgil's Aeneid and Homer's Odyssey

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similarities

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Aeneas is traveling around the Mediterranean in a way that parallels Odysseus' journey home

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Odysseus is harried by Poseidon whereas Aeneas is harried by Juno

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Odysseus is protected and looked after by Athena, Aeneas is protected by his mother, Venus (who parallels the Greek Aphrodite)

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differences

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Aeneas' purpose of his journey was to found a home, where Odysseus' was to return to his home

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both have to fight to gain their home, but Odysseus to regain his home, where Aeneas will have to fight to establish his home

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for every parallel that you find, there is going to be some Virgilian twist

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each time he makes a reference, he's tweaking it just a little bit

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there's never any lock-step repetition

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*** you can find hundreds of borrowings, but each of them is slightly off-center and each is interesting to look at

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examples

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Aeneas has washed up on the shore at Carthage and he is trying to understand what he is seeing

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we've seen this in Homer a number of times, and there is a parallel here with Odysseus landing on Scherie it seems with a grand citadel that he is observing

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differences

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Odysseus is amazed by the wealth

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Aeneas admires the orderliness of the workings building the city and walls, they have a senate, and has a wash of admiration for a carefully constructed society that is going to work well

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Iopas

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poetry

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similar to Homer's treatment of Demodocus

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poet in the Odyssey who often visits the court of Alcinous [al-SINN-oh-us], king of the Phaeacians on the island of Scherie [SKAIR-ee-ah]

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Virgil looks to Demodocus as a model for a poet

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Virgil has a cosmological understanding of poetry, talks about stars, planets

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Virgil: "when you look at my poetry, understand it as a way of me telling you a story of the entire cosmos, read hard, read carefully, and you'll find grand truths in my story"