Memory in Vergil's Aeneid Creating the Past

Tracing the path from Troy's destruction to Rome's foundation, the Aeneid explores the transition between past and future. As the Trojans struggle to found a new city and the narrator sings of his audience's often-painful history, memory becomes intertwined with a crucial leitmotif: the challenge of being part of a group that survives violence and destruction only to face the daunting task of remembering what was lost. This book offers a new reading of the Aeneid that engages with critical work on memory and questions the prevailing view that Aeneas must forget his disastrous history in order to escape from a cycle of loss. Considering crucial scenes such as Aeneas' reconstruction of Celaeno's prophecy and his slaying of Turnus, this book demonstrates that memory in the Aeneid is a reconstructive and dynamic process, one that offers a social and narrative mechanism for integrating a traumatic past with an uncertain future.

Introduction; 1. Turning toward Rome; 2. The challenge of Troy; 3. A personal affair: memories of Dido; 4. The narrator's song; 5. Imperatives of memory: foundation and fury in Aeneid 12; Conclusion.

Aaron M. Seider is an Assistant Professor at the College of the Holy Cross.