Short Answer Type

The Aeneid: Dreams

At the beginning of Aeneas's journey, the epic tale told by Virgil in the Aeneid, the god
Tiber comes to Aeneas in a dream to tell him of his destiny. Aeneas lies sleeping, still
wearing his armor and resting his head on his shield.

Compared to other known chalk works by Salvator Rosa, this drawing is unsually large
and complete. Not only have the figures been carefully built up with black and white
chalk, but the background is filled with wild lines that emphasize the drama of the scene.
Scholars have identified this drawing as a finished study for Rosa's etching of the same
subject made about 1663.

The Aeneid (/nid/; Latin: Aeneis [aenes]) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29
and 19 BC,[1] that tells thelegendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he
became the ancestor of the Romans. It comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter.[2] The first
six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas's wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the
poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose
name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.

The hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a
character in the Iliad. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas's wanderings, his vague
association with the foundation of Rome and a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a
scrupulous pietas, and fashioned this into a compelling founding myth or national epic that at
once tied Rome to the legends of Troy, explained the Punic Wars, glorified traditional Roman
virtues, and legitimized the Julio-Claudian dynasty as descendants of the founders, heroes, and
gods of Rome and Troy.

The Aeneid is widely regarded as Virgil's masterpiece[3][4] and one of the greatest works of Latin
liter

The Aeneid seems to me a book of visions and prophesies, monsters and portents. It's striking that
both the main characters, Aeneas and Turnus, are first introduced in dreams, in Aeneas' case not in
the main narrative, but in the tale he himself tells Dido about the fall of Troy and the start of his
journey. Aeneas enters this story asleep, when Hector appears to him in a dream and tells him that
Troy is lost and he must flee (2.268-297). And this, significantly, is the same dream that Dido has
had, mutatis mutandis, in which her husband Sychaeus appears to her all bloody and murdered, and
warns her to flee Tyre (1.357-363).

Turnus is first mentioned in 7.56, but he only shows up in person in the middle of his own violent
nightmare, when the Fury Allecto appears to him in the guise of a priestess of Juno and urges him to
war (7.413-458). Turnus resists the apparition--it's already been revealed (7.85-86) that the people of
Italy have special practice confronting dream images--but Allecto morphs back into her demonic
shape and terrifies him into submission.

Most of the dreams in the Aeneid are like these, prophetic or admonitory, in which a ghost or divine
being reveals the future or incites someone to action. In book three (3.147-171) his penates come to
Aeneas in a dream and tell him to abandon Crete, that Anchises was mistaken in his interpretation of
the oracle of Delos, and that the Trojans must seek Italy. This vision is so vivid that Aeneas tries to
deny it was a dream at all (nec sopor illud erat).

This confusion of waking and dreaming is not uncommon, either in literature or in life. It appears
again in the Aeneid in the episode of the loss of the ship's master Palinurus, who when he falls
overboard is shown in an obvious hypnagogic state, straddling the boundary between wakefulness
and sleep. It's not clear how much of what is described is a dream and how much a waking illusion
(5.835-863).

But men know that dreams can be false as well as true (6.894-897), so the business of delivering
messages through them can be risky. At the beginning of book eight Aeneas falls asleep on the bank
of the Tiber, and the river speaks to him in a dream, telling him to travel to Pallanteum and ally himself
with Evander. This message is so important to Aeneas' fortunes that the dream itself feels the need
to provide assurance of its own authenticity (ne vana putes haec fingere somnum), and Tiber predicts
that Aeneas will find a white sow and her piglets on the riverbank, which he duly does (8.26-65).

Aeneas might be plagued by dreams--he tells Dido he dreams of his father every night (4.350-353)--
but it is Latinus and his entire lineage who are revealed as dream warriors. After receiving a
prophecy and viewing an omen, the old king seeks answers by embarking on a vision quest (7.81-
106). Vergil describes the ritual. The king acting as priest enters the sacred grove and sacrifices a
hundred sheep (black ones presumably, since this is an offering to the dead). He then lies down to
sleep on their skins while inhaling the mephitic vapors of a sulfurous stream. Visions appear, he
hears voices, and he is able to speak with the gods and address his ancestors in Acheron.

Huc dona sacerdos

cum tulit et caesarum ovium sub nocte silenti
pellibus incubuit stratis somnosque petivit,
multa modis simulacra videt volitantia miris
et varias audit voces fruiturque deorum
conloquio, atque imis Acheronta adfatur Avernis.

Dreams come from below, even Dr. Freud knew that. One of the first things Aeneas sees when he
enters the underworld with the Sybil is the tree of false dreams, with one hidden under every leaf
(6.282-284). These might recall the Sybil's own prophecies that she writes on leaves and lets blow
around her cave unattended (3.443-451), or even the mob of unquiet spirits that rush down to the
shore of the river and crowd around Charon's boat, "as many as the leaves that fall in the forest at the
first chill of autumn (6.305-310)." Ghosts and dreams and prophecies are all fluttery, untrustworthy
things. Even more ominously, when Aeneas leaves the underworld to return to the light, Anchises
sends him through sleep's ivory gate, the one through which the spirits of the dead send false
dreams, deceptive visions (6.894-899).

But sometimes in the Aeneid a dream is just a dream. In book four Vergil describes Dido having a
perfectly ordinary anxiety dream, similar to those people have all the time--no ghosts, no prophesies,
not even any words; just disquieting images of herself lost and abandoned (4.465-468). And at the
very end of the poem Vergil uses the common nightmare experience of frozen panic as an expressive
metaphor for the hopeless state Turnus finds himself in (12.908-914).

Ac velut in somnis, oculos ubi languida pressit

nocte quies, nequiquam avidos extendere cursus
velle videmur et in mediis conatibus aegri
succidimus; non lingua valet, non corpore notae
sufficient vires nec vox aut verba sequuntur:
sic Turno, quacumque viam virtute petivit,
successum dea dira negat.

Existentialism
Existentialism A Definition
Existentialism in the broader sense is a 20th century philosophy that is centered upon the
analysis of existence and of the way humans find themselves existing in the world. The notion is
that humans exist first and then each individual spends a lifetime changing their essence or
nature.

In simpler terms, existentialism is a philosophy concerned with finding self and the meaning of
life through free will, choice, and personal responsibility. The belief is that people are searching
to find out who and what they are throughout life as they make choices based on their
experiences, beliefs, and outlook. And personal choices become unique without the necessity of
an objective form of truth. An existentialist believes that a person should be forced to choose and
be responsible without the help of laws, ethnic rules, or traditions.

Existentialism What It Is and Isnt

Existentialism takes into consideration the underlying concepts:

Human free will

Human nature is chosen through life choices
A person is best when struggling against their individual nature, fighting for life
Decisions are not without stress and consequences
There are things that are not rational
Personal responsibility and discipline is crucial
Society is unnatural and its traditional religious and secular rules are arbitrary
Worldly desire is futile

Existentialism is broadly defined in a variety of concepts and there can be no one answer as to
what it is, yet it does not support any of the following:

wealth, pleasure, or honor make the good life

social values and structure control the individual
accept what is and that is enough in life
science can and will make everything better
people are basically good but ruined by society or external forces
I want my way, now! or It is not my fault! mentality

There is a wide variety of philosophical, religious, and political ideologies that make up
existentialism so there is no universal agreement in an arbitrary set of ideals and beliefs. Politics
vary, but each seeks the most individual freedom for people within a society.

Existentialism Impact on Society

Existentialistic ideas came out of a time in society when there was a deep sense of despair
following the Great Depression and World War II. There was a spirit of optimism in society that
was destroyed by World War I and its mid-century calamities. This despair has been articulated
by existentialist philosophers well into the 1970s and continues on to this day as a popular way of
thinking and reasoning (with the freedom to choose ones preferred moral belief system and
lifestyle).

An existentialist could either be a religious moralist, agnostic relativist, or an amoral atheist.

Kierkegaard, a religious philosopher, Nietzsche, an anti-Christian, Sartre, an atheist, and Camus
an atheist, are credited for their works and writings about existentialism. Sartre is noted for
bringing the most international attention to existentialism in the 20th century.

Each basically agrees that human life is in no way complete and fully satisfying because of
suffering and losses that occur when considering the lack of perfection, power, and control one
has over their life. Even though they do agree that life is not optimally satisfying, it nonetheless
has meaning. Existentialism is the search and journey for true self and true personal meaning in
life.

Most importantly, it is the arbitrary act that existentialism finds most objectionable-that is, when
someone or society tries to impose or demand that their beliefs, values, or rules be faithfully
accepted and obeyed. Existentialists believe this destroys individualism and makes a person
become whatever the people in power desire thus they are dehumanized and reduced to being
an object. Existentialism then stresses that a person's judgment is the determining factor for what
is to be believed rather than by arbitrary religious or secular world values.

Existentialism is a philosophical way of thinking. It sees humans, with will and consciousness,
as being in a world of objects which do not have those qualities. The fact that humans are
conscious of their mortality, and must make decisions about their life is what existentialism is all
about.[1]

It was started by the Danish philosopher Sren Kierkegaard (18131855).[1] As it developed in

the 20th century, it was an atheisticphilosophy, although existentialism's founder, Sren
Kierkegaard, was a deeply religious man. [1] Most of its main thinkers and writers were in
Europe. Sartre, for example, spent most of the Second World War in a German prison camp,
reading the philosophy of Heidegger.[2]When he came out he gave a lecture called Existentialism
and humanism. This early lecture may be easier to read than his later work.[3]

Many religions and philosophies (ways of thinking about the world) say that human life has a
meaning (or a purpose). But people who believe in existentialism think that the world and human
life have no meaning unless people give them meaning: "existence precedes [is before]
essence". This means that we find ourselves existing in the world, and then we give ourselves
meaning, or 'essence'. As Sartre said, "We are condemned to be free".[2] This means that we
have no choice but to choose, and that we have full responsibility for our choices.
Existentialists believe that our human 'essence' or 'nature' (way of being in the world) is simply
our 'existence' (being in the world). More simply put, the 'essence' of a human, or what makes a
human a 'human', is not due to nature or uncontrollable circumstances; rather, human essence is
really just what we choose to make it. This means that the only nature we as humans have is the
nature we make for ourselves. As a result of this, existentialists think that the actions or choices
that a person makes are very important. They believe that every person has to decide for
themselves what is right and wrong, and what is good and bad.

People who believe in existentialism ask questions like "what is it like to be a human (a person)
in the world?" and "how can we understand human freedom (what it means for a person to be
free)?" Existentialism is often connected with negative emotions, such as anxiety (worrying),
dread (a very strong fear), and mortality (awareness of our own death).

Existentialism is sometimes confused with nihilism. It is different from nihilism, but there is a
similarity. Nihilists believe that human life does not have a meaning (or a purpose) at all;
existentialism says that people must choose their own purpose.

"Magical realism" has become a debased term. When it first came into use to
describe the work of certain Latin American writers, and then a small number of
writers from many places in the world, it had a specific meaning that made it
useful for critics. If someone made a list of recent magical realist works, there were
certain characteristics that works on the list would share. The term also pointed to a
particular array of techniques that writers could put to specialized use. Now the
words have been applied so haphazardly that to call a work "magical realism"
doesn't convey a very clear sense of what the work will be like.

If a magazine editor these days asks for contributions that are magical realism,
what she's really saying is that she wants contemporary fantasy written to a high
literary standard---fantasy that readers who "don't read escapist literature" will
happily read. It's a marketing label and an attempt to carve out a part of the prestige
readership for speculative works.

I don't object to using labels to make readers more comfortable, to draw them to
work that they might otherwise unfairly dismiss. But by over-using the term, we've
obscured a distinctive branch of literature. More importantly from my perspective,
we've made it harder for new writers to discover the tools of magical realism as a
distinct set allowing them to create work that portrays particular ways of looking at
the world. If writers read a hundred works labeled "magical realism," they will
encounter such a hodgepodge that they may not recognize the minority of such
works that are doing something different, something those writers may want to try
themselves.

So what is magical realism?

It is, first of all, a branch of serious fiction, which is to say, it is not escapist. Let
me be clear: I like escapist fiction, and some of what I write is escapism. I'm with
C.S. Lewis when he observes that the only person who opposes escape is, by
definition, a jailer. Entertainment, release, fun...these are all good reasons to read
and to write. But serious fiction's task is not escape, but engagement. Serious
fiction helps us to name our world and see our place in it. It conveys or explores
truth.

Any genre of fiction can get at truths, of course. Some science fiction and fantasy
do so, and are serious fiction. Some SF and fantasy are escapist. But magical
realism is always serious, never escapist, because it is trying to convey the reality
of one or several worldviews that actually exist, or have existed. Magical realism is
a kind of realism, but one different from the realism that most of our culture now
experiences.

Science fiction and fantasy are always speculative. They are always positing that
some aspect of objective reality were different. What if vampires were real? What
if we could travel faster than light?

Magical realism is not speculative and does not conduct thought experiments.
Instead, it tells its stories from the perspective of people who live in our world and
experience a different reality from the one we call objective. If there is a ghost in a
story of magical realism, the ghost is not a fantasy element but a manifestation of
the reality of people who believe in and have "real" experiences of ghosts. Magical
realist fiction depicts the real world of people whose reality is different from ours.
It's not a thought experiment. It's not speculation. Magical realism endeavors to
show us the world through other eyes. When it works, as I think it does very well
in, say, Leslie Marmon Silko's novel Ceremony, some readers will inhabit this
other reality so thoroughly that the "unreal" elements of the story, such as witches,
will seem frighteningly real long after the book is finished. A fantasy about
southwestern Indian witches allows you to put down the book with perhaps a little
shiver but reassurance that what you just read is made up. Magical realism leaves
you with the understanding that this world of witches is one that people really live
in and thefeeling that maybe this view is correct.

It's possible to read magical realism as fantasy, just as it's possible to dismiss
people who believe in witches as primitives or fools. But the literature at its best
invites the reader to compassionately experience the world as many of our fellow
human beings see it.

There are three main effects by which magical realism conveys this different
world-view, and those effects relate to the ways in which this world-view is
different from the "objective" (empirical, positivist) view. In these other realities,
time is not linear, causality is subjective, and the magical and the ordinary are one
and the same.

Consider the structure of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel, One Hundred Years of
Solitude. As readers sense from the first first page which begins with a firing squad
and then a very, very long flashback, time does not always march forward in the
magical realist world view. The distant past is present in every moment, and the
future has already happened. Great shifts in the narrative's time sequence reflect a
reality that is almost outside of time. This accounts for ghosts, for premonitions,
and the feeling that time is a great repetition rather than a progression. In Garcia
Marquez's novel, certain events keep returning in the present focus, even as time
does gradually wind through generations.

As for causality, the objective view tells us that one person's emotion can't kill
someone else. We believe this so strongly that a world view in which emotion can
kill won't convince us---we'll write it off as fantasy. So magical realist works put
causally connected events side by side in a way that doesn't appear to violate
objective reality, but attempts to convince us by details that the events described
are linked by more than chance. In Ceremony, for example, there is a scene in
which a spurned woman is dancing very angrily. Miles away, the man who
betrayed her is checking the commotion his cattle are making in the night.
Descriptions of the woman's heels stamping the floor are alternated with
descriptions of the cattle trampling the man to death, back and forth from one to
the other. No assertion of causality is made, but the dancer's heels and the animals'
hooves become linked so powerfully that the reader doesn't just "get it." What's
conveyed is not a symbol or a metaphor, but the reality that a woman can be so
angry that when she she dances, her lover dies.

The third effect is my favorite. If your view of the world includes miracles and
angels, beast-men and women of unearthly beauty, gods walking among us and
ceremonies that can end a drought, then all of these things are as ordinary to you as
automobiles, desert streams, and ice in the tropics. At the same time, the whole
world is enchanted, mysterious. Automobiles, desert streams, and ice are all as
astonishing as angels.

To convey this, magical realist writers write the ordinary as miraculous and the
miraculous as ordinary. The ice that gypsies bring to the tropical village of
Macondo inOne Hundred Years of Solitude is described with awe. How can such a
substance exist? It is so awesomely beautiful that characters find it difficult to
account for or describe. But it's not just novelties such as a first encounter with ice
that merit such description. The natural world comes in for similar attention. The
behavior of ants or the atmosphere of a streamside oasis are described in details
that match objective experience, but which remind us that the world is surprising
and seemingly full of design and purpose.

The miraculous, on the other hand, is described with a precision that fits it into the
ordinariness of daily life. When one of the characters in One Hundred Years of
Solitude is shot in the head, the blood from his body flows out into the street in a
path that takes it all the way to the feet of the character's grandmother---a miracle.
But along the way, the path of the blood is described in great detail, and the
miraculous journey is rooted in the day-to-day activities of the village and the
grandmother's household. An even better example is the character who is so
beautiful that she is followed everywhere by a cloud of butterflies. This
extraordinary trait is brought to earth somewhat by the observation that all of the
butterflies have tattered wings. The miraculous, looked at closely, is mundane.
I've written this essay from memory, without consulting the novels to which I
allude. I may have a detail or two wrong. My point remains valid: Magical realism
is a distinctive form of fiction that aims to produce the experience of a non-
objective world view. Its techniques are particular to that world view, and while
they may at first look something like the techniques of sophisticated fantasy,
magical realism is trying to do more than play with reality's rules. It is conveying
realities that other people really do experience, or once experienced.

As a tool, magical realism can be used to explore the realities of characters or

communities who are outside of the objective mainstream of our culture. It's not
just South Americans, Indians, or African slaves who may offer these alternative
views. Religious believers for whom the numinous is always present and miracles
are right around the corner, believers to whom angels really do appear and to
whom God reveals Himself directly, they too inhabit a magical realist reality.

While I don't expect the words "magical realism" to revert to their specialized use,
I hope that writers won't lose sight of the special literature those words once
pointed to exclusively. Magical realism is fascinating to read, and I hope to see
more writers exploring its possibilities and conveying to "mainstream" readers
ways of thinking that can help all of us to somewhat re-enchant the world.