The death of Dido
1. The story of Dido and Aeneas: re-tell it in your own words. (Unless someone has already.)
2. The story of Helen reuniting with her husband Meneleus: retell it in your own words. (Unless someone has already.)
3. Can you find any elements the two stories have in common?
4. Given what has happened so far, does it seem possible that Lavinia's story might up sad or tragic? Explain.
5. Describe the poet-ghost's and Lavinia's relationship.
13 comments:
1. The story of Dido and Aeneas: re-tell it in your own words. (Unless someone has already.)
In the book, it tells a story about Dido and Aeneas. It all started when Aeneas looses his wife to greeks and goes to the city that was just getting built. He meets a queen named Dido as she welcomed him, he falls in love with her. and also tells her that he will help her to start building the city. But, his love for Creusa and, his wife before he ran away from his city reminded him of his fate. his fate was to go to Italy. Although he had promised the queen Dido that he will help her build a city, he ran away from her. Because of her love, Aeneas, running away from her, Dido killed her self.
Describe the poet-ghost's and Lavinia's relationship.
I feel like the poet to Lavinia is almost like a TV show. That sounds bad at the moment, but let me explain. She goes to this special place, Albunea, to hear him tell her stories. She loves the stories. It's the same relationship as a person would have with a book, which makes sense.
The poet is writing, or was writing, a book that had Lavinia in it. Therefore, it makes sense that Lavinia listen to the poet like people will read his book.
I feel like Lavinia uses the poet as an escape from her own predicament, which is perhaps marrying Turnus and being "the rabbit" for the rest of her life. People read books to keep themselves entertained and happy, and they use them as escapes. I imagine that Lavinia wants to hear the stories of other people because she is so bored or uninspired or scared with her own.
The poet-ghost tells Lavinia the story that she is in I think because he is sick and dying. He is glad to get away to somewhere more pleasant than his illness. Also, I feel that he loves her. All writers feel for their characters, and I believe that the poet loves Lavinia's character. It's an almost fatherly love, not a romantical love, though.
I have a suspicion that by the time the poet finally dies and no longer comes Albunea to talk to Lavinia, he will regret not making her more important. He will have realized there was more to her than he originally wrote there to be. The poet is discovering his character. It's like he is exploring her and slowly becoming more and more fond of her.
Sang Eun
2. The story of Helen reuniting with her husband Meneleus: retell it in your own words. (Unless someone has already.)
Helen was originally a wife of Meneleus, but was taken to Troy by a Trojan Prince, Paris. Because of her being kidnapped, Greeks and Trojans had a war between them. During the war, Paris died and Trojans gave Helen to his brother, Deiphobos. When the Greeks took over the city, Helen met her old husband and took him to the bedroom where her new husband was sleeping without knowing the emergent situation. Obviously, Meneleus killed Deiphobos cruelly and he died. After that, Helen returned with her old husband.
3. Can you find any elements the two stories have in common?
Well first of all, both stories have love relationships happening in them and eventually destroy them. In the story of Dido and Aeneas, Aeneas falls in love with Dido but he leaves her to fulfill his fate and Dido kills herself in the end. This is an extreme situation, but the extremes are happening because of the love factor.
In the story of Helen and Meneleus, Helen is taken away and causes a war and Paris dies because of it, then Menelues kills her old husband because he sees him in the bed. This story is more pushed by jealousy then love, but jealousy is still a very string emotion. The jealousy is actually caused by love...so I guess love is the real reason. Everything in this story falls the pieces because of their emotions.
Emotions play a huge role in each story and each character is affected by them . Both stories are affected extremely by their emotions and how the characters act depending on that emotion. In both stories I think we can say that love plays a key role in each.
Yeena Sung
4. Given what has happened so far, does it seem possible that Lavinia's story might up sad or tragic? Explain.
I think that Lavinia’s story might end up being sad or totally the opposite of it. It is mentioned in the book about the story of Dido and Aeneas and the story about Helen reuniting with her husband Meneleus. I will not get deep into these but I think both of these stories have tragic or sad endings. This shows that the poet enjoys or he usually likes writing sad endings. So, Lavinia’s story might end up being sad. This is also known when he says “… I haven’t the strength to go on. That’s the trouble. I am weak. So the end will be cruel.” This sentence shows that he is not brave enough to finish the story, and since he is weak, he ends the story being sad. However, I also think that he would not want Lavinia’s story to end up being sad because he has more of a close relationship with Lavinia and they share their thoughts.
3. Can you find any elements the two stories have in common?
In both stories there seems to be many similarities. One would be that in both stories, there is a tragic death that was not needed to happen or was not a death as punishment or in war. In the Story of Dido and Aeneas, Dido commits her own suicide for loving Aenneas after him leaving her. In the story of Helen she brings her old husband into a room where her new husband is sleeping....obviously allowing the old husband to kill the new husband which would have never happened if Helen had not brought her old husband into the bedroom. Both stories seem like they could have been prevented easily but the greeks like to make their stories very tragic, hense the dramatic endings.
Also, a common theme in both stories is love and shifting love from an ex lover to a current or new lover. For example, in the story of Dido...."Aeneas looses his wife to greeks and goes to the city that was just getting built. He meets a queen named Dido as she welcomed him, he falls in love with her." In the story with Helen, it is as simple as "During the war, Paris died and Trojans gave Helen to his brother, Deiphobos. When the Greeks took over the city, Helen met her old husband and he killed Deiphobos"....and more
4. Given what has happened so far, does it seem possible that Lavinia's story might end up sad or tragic? Explain.
Yes, in the book it suggests that Lavinia will live longer then her husband. The book also mentions the end of the world when she was examining the shield and how horrible it was. lastly the poet speaks of a war that will happen.
Heather Rhee
Q3
A.
I agree with Christy. Both stories are related to love and emotional feelings.
I wanted to add 'betray'as a common thing in both stories.
In the story of Dido and Aeneas, even though there was a promise between them, Dido leaves Aeneas.
In the story of Helen, Helen leaves her husband because of her new lover.
Both Helen and Dido betray someone who had a strong relationship (husband-wife,lover) with them.
Demi & Ka Yeon (our emails were'nt working)
3. Can you find any elements the two stories have in common?
Both stories told of betrayl of love and violence. Because of the one betrayed, they either get killed or commit suicide.
Sung Kun Kim
4. Given what has happened so far, does it seem possible that Lavinia's story might up sad or tragic? Explain.
- Yes. In the two stories of Dido and Helen were both tragic. Dido killed herself in despair when Aeneas ran away because of his fate of raising a city. Helen caused a war because of Ahrodites promise with Paris. So the end of the story will end in a tragic way like the two stories that the poet told Lavinia.
Answer to #5:
The relationship between the poet and Lavinia is a curious one. The poet seems to be an omniscient, grandfather-like figure to Lavinia, but at the same time, they seem like comrades; kindred spirits. The poet provides Lavinia with her 'backstory', while she tells him about herself. He is also wise, and Lavinia uses his knowledge to her advantage. On the other hand, the poet seems to lack knowledge about Lavinia, and seems to regret not 'knowing' her as well as he could have. Together, they strive forward, contemplating what is in store for them.
3. Can you find any elements the two stories have in common?
In the story of Dido and Aeneas, its a tragedy, where Dido ends up killing herself but Aeneas lives after running away and that being the reason Dido killed herself. While in the story of Helen and her husband is sad too, but both stories are love stories.
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