School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemVirgil’s Aeneid: a world of labyrinths( 2017)The role of the labyrinth in Virgil’s Aeneid is often overlooked, and, I argue, has never before been fully appreciated. In fact, the geometry of the labyrinth symbol and its mythic background not only shape the narrative action and motivations of the characters, but also lend literary and mythic context that enrich the symbolism and social commentary of the poem. The labyrinth motif provides a unifying backdrop to specific moral and philosophical concerns at the time of Virgil in Augustan Rome. The aim of this thesis is to offer a new way of reading the Aeneid. It establishes the importance of the labyrinth to the text and systematically demonstrates the centrality of the labyrinth symbolism to the original and holistic worldview presented in the Aeneid. In this reading of the poem, Virgil’s concepts of space and time emerge as fractal iterations of the labyrinth’s geometric form. This work begins in Chapter One with an overview of the labyrinth in archaeology and literature up to the time of Virgil. A detailed understanding of this background is essential to recognition of the full significance of the labyrinth to the Aeneid. Chapters Two, Three and Four use the scaffolding of Chapter One to investigate the wider application of the metaphor of the labyrinth throughout the poem. Reading the Aeneid in this light yields a new framework for understanding Aeneas’ heroic journey and may further reveal the true nature of the poem’s trajectory concerning the future of Rome.