This is what I'm hoping my completed essay will look like. Obviously it's very much in draft form and subject to change... but I feel that this structure will address the question adequately. I'll try and keep editing this as I go.
Question: To what extent was The
Aeneid a propaganda text for Caesar
Augustus?
Introduction:
-
The Aeneid
is widely considered to be a propaganda text
o
Evidence for this statement
-
There are a number of reasons why this statement
might be accurate
o
Especially excerpts from book 6, where the story
of the glorified future of Rome is narrated to Aeneas by his father, Anchises
o
More evidence to come
-
However, given the brevity of these comments,
(and more evidence to come), it’s hardly fair to say that this was the defining
feature of the poem)
-
Also, it had a variety of other purposes:
o
Entertainment (evidence to come)
o
Virgil’s masterwork (evidence to come)
o
Creation story
-
But the most important reason it was written was
as a religious text
o
Describes the omnipotence of the immortals
o
Creates an archetypal Roman
o
Discusses mortality and the human condition
(esp. at the end of book 12)
-
Therefore, it is fair to say that The Aeneid was written as a propaganda
text to some extent, but that its
main purpose was as a religious text, providing both guidelines for the Roman
way of life, details of the immortals and an image of the archetypal Roman.
Paragraph 1: Reasons why The
Aeneid might, to a reasonable extent, have been written as a propaganda
text
- Excerpts from the
poem, especially from book 6, strongly present The Aeneid as a propaganda text
for the emperor Caesar Augustus.
Paragraph 2: Reasons why these reasons are flawed, and
reasons why it is unfair to suggest that The
Aeneid was solely written to be a propaganda text
- There are a variety
of reasons, however, why the above elements of the poem ought not to be said to
influence the overall purpose of The Aeneid, and why it is therefore only fair
to say that The Aeneid was a propaganda text for Caesar Augustus to a small
extent.
Paragraph 3: Reasons why The
Aeneid might, to a great extent, have been written as a religious text
- As a result of a
number of different elements of the poem, especially its conclusion, it is more
accurate to suggest that The Aeneid was written as a religious text than as a
propaganda text.
Conclusion!
