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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 3 page paper comparing the underworld visits of Aeneas in Virgil’s Aeneid to that of Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey. The paper concludes that although both have elements of terror, Aeneas’ visit ends on a note of hope, while Odysseus’ does not. No additional sources.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_KBunder.doc
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
"the other side" and returned to the living with a full report, theories on this subject have been purely speculative. However, it is interesting to compare and contrast views of
the Underworld as drawn from the Greek Odyssey and the Roman Aeneid -- two works often considered similar, but which manifest extremely different views of death. Homer, in the Odyssey,
has his hero Odysseus go to visit the Underworld after the accidental death of his young sailor Elpenor. After sacrificing a black lamb and an ewe in order to provide
the dead with the blood they need to speak, ghosts seem to swell up around Odysseus; it does not seem so much that he has visited Hades as he has
become aware of the coexistence of Hades and the world of the living, all on the same plane. Elpenor was the first ghost to greet him, despite the fact that
his body lay yet unburied "on the wide earth" (Homer, XI, line 35). Odysseus is struck by the swiftness with which Elpenor has joined the company of the dead, since
only moments before he was with the company of the living. Elpenor reassures Odysseus that those he loves most dearly are still alive back in Ithaka -- he will not
see the shades of Penelope or Telemakhos here -- but implores Odysseus to give him a decent burial before his body is ravaged by scavengers. Odysseus assures him he will.
Beyond Elpenor, however, Odysseus glimpses his mother, Antikleia. He weeps, for he had not known she was dead; but he "held her off" because he wants to see Teiresias, the
famous seer, first. His desire to see Teiresias seems to be the result of the sudden and upsetting death of young Elpenor; he no longer feels secure in the future,
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