In the ancient world, storytelling could form part of a process in which negative emotions became catalysts for positive change. In this session, we discuss with Professor Helen Lovatt what we can learn about handling crisis and grief from Virgil’s account of the Fall of Troy and the founding of Rome.
Chair and facilitator
John Holford & Volker Wedekind
Reading/resources
In this session, we will be discussing storytelling and grief by looking at a Latin epic poem in which the hero Aeneas tells the story of the fall of Troy to his admiring hostess, Dido. This narrative takes up the whole of Aeneid Book 2, and in Book 3 he tells about the wanderings that eventually led him and his people to be ship-wrecked in Carthage. This is part of my project on The Power of Sadness which uses Virgil’s Aeneid to reflect on ancient models of loss and resilience, and to think about the negative emotions associated with grief as a potential source of energy, a catalyst for action.
A translation of Virgil’s Aeneid by Tony Kline.
A much more literary, classic version by the poet John Dryden.
If you wanted to buy a translation to enjoy reading the whole poem, I’d recommend the Oxford World’s Classics version by Fred Ahl, which my students find stimulating and readable.
A brief introduction to the Aeneid from the Open University
My own blog on the Power of Sadness project. I will be adding more posts to this as I reflect on the project during the build up to the session.