Competing Commemorations: Apostrophes of the Dead in the Aeneid

Abstract

This article argues that a series of apostrophes in the Aeneid's second half explores the challenging dynamics of establishing a dominant social memory. In these apostrophes the narrator addresses several characters on the threshold of death, and each time, he attempts to dictate how they will be remembered by his audience. Yet these narratival exclamations contrast with the characters' competing commemorations of the dead, a juxtaposition which undermines the narrator's seemingly authoritative memorials. Through these various apostrophes, Vergil foregrounds a paradoxical tension within the Aeneid between the need to move forward and the provisional nature of any sense of closure.