The Forest and the Trees: Teaching the Aeneid in High School

When I was asked to join this panel (and after I foolishly accepted), I looked back over the years that I have taught the Aeneid. I realize now that when I started teaching this great epic on the AP level, which then covered all 3,166 lines of books 1, 2, 4, and 6, I did so with only two weeks' notice; I have been teaching it ever since and have gradually come to understand just how great a genius Vergil was and on how many different levels the work can be interpreted. In high school I had read the same material and in a graduate seminar I had studied the second half of the Aeneid. Now I have read the entire work through a dozen times or so and have taught the AP syllabus (and more) over thirty times; I try to keep up with the secondary literature in various books and journals, and I have discussed countless issues with colleagues and students over the years.

I am both proud and dismayed to confess that I still have not made up my mind about the Aeneid; I do not know whether Aeneas treats Dido well in book 4 or if Aeneas is justified in killing Turnus at the end of book 12. What the gates of Sleep represent at the conclusion of book 6, I will not even try to guess. My students, however, all have opinions and are delighted to argue with me every day that we translate and discuss the work. I find myself functioning as an advocatus diaboli, taking whatever position will force them to think through their ideas and support them with evidence from the text. I defend and attack Dido, often in the same class.

This year we staged a trial in which the students brought charges against Aeneas on Dido's behalf. Witnesses were called and the judges decided that Aeneas was innocent of all charges, except for contributing to the destruction of Dido's reputation. What was most interesting about the trial was that both sides were in general agreement after the passion of competition had abated. Some of their comments: (Aeneas' lawyer) "I thought Dido's lawyers made very good arguments, but a lot of what they said wasn't in the text or (in my belief) they misconstrued many things." Dido's lawyers: "It got me looking at individual passages and examining characters more closely than I ever would have on my own.... I completely understand the judges' verdict. I would have voted the same way." Another lawyer for Dido wrote: "After examining Dido's case from her point of view, I have come to realize that external forces played a huge role in Dido's misfortune, and Aeneas is responsible for many of his actions.... I felt Dido had a lot of interesting and valid points, but none of them could be legally proven—it seems they are just a matter of morals and ethics. I found this very aggravating.... I felt that Aeneas' lawyers brought up valid and original points that I hadn't considered before."

On a daily basis, high school teachers of Vergil face many problems that have no easy resolution. We can all count on students asking certain questions. Why, they wonder, do all the names of the characters have to begin with A (Aeneas, Achates, Aeolus, Antenor, Anchises, Acestes, Abas, Anna, and a few others, who, like Abas, are minor characters, which fact the students do not yet appreciate). Also, they complain that the figures of speech all begin with weird letters like a (again) or z, or they are Greek words and they are studying Latin.

Since we start the Aeneid at the end of ninth grade at Trinity School, we are also dealing with students who have not yet fully developed their analytical abilities and who approach literature with a high degree of literalness. "If Jupiter is omnipotens" or "if this is Aeneas' fate," then "what's the big deal?" they demand to know. This problem usually clears up, except for the occasional student who...