| In looking at the Aeneid, we see that Vergil's work exhibits a conscious and studied use of dreams. This dissertation investigates how and to what purpose Vergil adapted his many sources for the representation of dreams, ending with a look at the dream-like elements of Aeneid VI. Although scholars have looked at various examples of dreaming in Greek and Latin literature, no one has yet collected these studies or applied these analyses as a whole to the study of Vergil's use of dreams and dream elements in the Aeneid. Such a comprehensive examination in turn helps us to understand not only Vergil's use of dreams but also the larger context of Greek and Roman literary presentations of dreams.;In the first seven chapters, I trace the types of dreams and dream references found in the Homeric epics, in tragedy, in Greek historiography and oratory, in the philosophical and medical writers, in the Greek and Roman comedies, and in Pindar, Hellenistic poetry, and Roman poetry. In the eighth chapter, I trace the types of dreams and dream references found in the Aeneid outside of Book VI, including dream similes and the dreams of Aeneas, Dido, Palinurus, and Turnus.;In the final chapter, I turn to Aeneid VI, where we see that Vergil blends the mythology and philosophy of the Greeks with the Roman traditions of pageants and historical review. The effect is both personal, relying as it does on Aeneas' impressions of the images which he sees, but also nationalistic, portraying the future glory and responsibilities of Rome. The dream-like atmosphere helps to connect the many contradictory conceptions of the afterlife found in the book and to explain the incongruous elements of the book as a whole. In the end, the reader may legitimately sense that Aeneas is dreaming during his journey through the Underworld or even that Aeneas is himself a dream, the audience's dream. Aeneas then represents the unreal dream of traditional story, legend, and mythology which pervade Vergil's Aeneid, his version of Italian ancestry and history. |
