Author:
Andrea Marcolongo
Publishing house:
Laterza
Date of publication:
24-09-2020
If in times of peace and prosperity we ask Homer to teach us about life, at every upheaval of History we should lay down the Iliad and Odyssey and hasten to take up the Aeneid again. Andrea Marcolongo lets us discover the true essence of Aeneas. The hero who seeks a new beginning holding the most valuable asset: the ability to endure and hope. A very timely lesson.
Have you ever wondered why, even though we all had to read the Aeneid in school, we struggle to remember anything other than the escape from Troy or the great tragic love story with Dido? Why have we so easily forgotten the epic tales of the mythical origins of Rome and its empire? Perhaps it is because the verses of Virgil’s poem are not suitable for times when things are running smoothly and then one goes in search of adventure in literature. Aeneas’s song is meant for the moment when one experiences the urgency of reconnecting in an aftermath that stuns for how different it is from the before in which one has always lived. Aeneas is the hero who wanders the world carrying old people and children on his shoulders. He is the one who travels on a ship without a helmsman in search of a new beginning, a promised land in which to begin again. He is the defeated man, the one who has nothing left except the ability to endure and hope. A character as relevant as ever.