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'Grief In Virgil's The Aeneid'

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Grief plays a major role in Virgil’s The Aeneid. It acts as many characters’ primary motivation and in turn drives the plot of the epic. Most of the major events that occur directly or indirectly relate to the grief a character feels. Whether a character mourns the loss of their country and kingdom or someone close to them, their grief greatly influences their actions and evokes extreme decisions. Grief is prevalent throughout the entire epic, influencing the majority of character’s decisions and the plot even more so than other integral aspects of the work such as love and fate. Grief drives characters’ actions and the epic’s plot more than anything else, making it the central focus of the epic. Grief of the loss of one’s country is perhaps the most prevalent example of grief illustrated throughout the epic. The protagonist, Aeneas, expresses mourning for the loss of Troy numerous times throughout the work, “Sorrow too deep to tell, your majesty,/You order me to feel and tell once more:/How the Danaans leveled in the dust/The splendor of our mourned-forever kingdom” (Virgil 2.3-6). His anguish drives his actions …show more content…
Grief of a person a character has lost drives them to extreme reactions both emotionally and in terms of their actions. Aeneas’ grief over the death of his father leads him to venture down into the Underworld, a place he could possibly never escape, “to retrace your steps to heaven’s air,/There is the trouble, there is the toil” (6.189-190). Despite this risk, Aeneas chooses to descend into the abyss due to his intense desire to see his father once more, “One thing I pray for:/Since it is here they say one finds the gate/Of the king of the under world, the shadowy marsh/That wells from Acheron, may I have leave/To go to my father’s side and see him” (6.158-162). Aeneas undergoes a perilous task because of his grief of losing his beloved

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