Vergil's Aeneid and the Roman Self: Subject and Nation in Literary Discourse

CHAPTER 4. The Spectacle of Emotions

CHAPTER 4 The previous chapter has been concerned with the gaze of Aeneas, his emotional responses to spectacles, and the reader's identification with him through sharing his gaze and empathizing with him. However, when we think of empathizing with characters of the Aeneid, Aeneas is probably not the first character that comes to mind. The poem is full ofcharacters whose suffering the reader is invited to empathize with, the most obvious being Dido. In the present chapter I will turn to some ofthese characters and consider the relationship the text establishes between them and the reader. Several ofthese figures provide instructive contrasts to the construction ofAeneas' subjectivity through his gaze. I will show that the subjectivities of Dido, Andromache, and Juno are constructed differently from Aeneas'. Although they, too, own a gaze, they are constructed as spectacles of subjectivity rather than figures ofidentification for the reader. Their gazes are themselves gazed at. The text constructs their subjectivities primarily through their emotions rather than through their gazes. We have seen that the emotions and one's control over them is a central concern of ancient thinking about the self If we consider the Aeneid as having a formative impact on the ancient reader's sense ofself, we must consider in particular what effect the depiction of the passions has on readers. In contrast to Aeneas, whose emotions are carefully controlled, many characters in the poem give free rein to their emotions. Among them are a number offemale characters. This in itselfis an interesting fact. 88 Vergil's Aeneid and the Roman Self Ifwe focus on the nexus between gender and the emotions on a more generallevel , our result is predictable: unbridled emotions are often assigned to female figures. But what does this mean for the reader's perspective? In order to answer this question I will consider the relevant figures in detail and closely observe the textual strategies by which the reader's perspective is established vis-a.-vis these figures. I will argue that a number offemale figures are represented as spectacles rather than as spectators ofspectacles. As such, they allow the reader to see the spectacle of their passions, their genesis, their manifestations, and their outcome. When these characters do own a gaze, it has the instructive purpose of showing-rather than letting the reader experience-how a spectacle affects the figure's emotions. The ancient theory of the gaze as an entryway of the passions to the soul is put into concrete illustration in these female figures. The reader can observe from a distance how the passions entering the soul cause disturbance and turmoil. This does not mean that readers don't identifY with Dido or Andromache. Dido's suffering is among the most powerful and most affecting depictions ofemotions in the Aeneid, and inevitably we sympathize with her. Less obvious to the reader is a certain distance the text establishes in these cases. Various textual strategies such as authorial comments or casting the figure as a theatrical spectacle serve to create this distance between reader and fictional character. The significance of these textual strategies of distancing lies in a differentiation of levels of identification the reader experiences with characters of the poem. Identification with Aeneas is qualitatively different from identification with figures such as Dido and Andromache. Because the reader shares Aeneas' gaze as well as empathizes with him, identification with him is more immediate and less perceptible. The textual strategies that assimilate the reader's gaze with that ofAeneas do not draw attention to themselves. Their imperceptibility, however, does not render them any less powerful. On the contrary, keeping the reader unaware of his assimilation of Aeneas' gaze makes identification with him more powerful than with other characters. Figures like Dido and Andromache often invite our sympathy more overtly, by a fuller description of their emotional experiences. In the case of Dido we will see that the reader empathizes with her, but does not share her gaze most of the time. The reader in some sense experiences her feelings but does not fully identifY with them. Rather, the reader experiences Dido's emotions vicariously; her suffering stirs pity and fear, it is cathartic. As we have seen in the discussion of the spectacle of Pasiphae's passion, the The Spectacle ofEmotions function of spectacle is to assimilate the experience of reading female passion to that of seeing it enacted as a drama. The...