A Summary Of Dido's Suicide Essay

Prior to this encounter in the underworld, Dido’s suicide appeared to be an event of unfathomable irrationality, stemming from an absent will for life devoid of Aeneas and requited love. With the addition of this scene however, the betrayal she was so insistent upon withers away into nothingness as we observe Aeneas’s horror and regret. The vows he proclaims at this moment suggest that he would forsake fate in Dido’s name were he given the chance to make his choice over again. Alas, the overabundance of will that stirred Aeneas and enabled him to tear away from the one his heart loved in pursuit of his destiny was the very thing she needed most. Devoid of will entirely, Dido tore herself from the earthly world and resigned all hope for

Over 2500 years after Homer wrote The Odyssey, his principal character was given a reprised voice in Lord Alfred Tennyson’s aptly titled poem, “Ulysses.” As the supposed speaker of the early Victorian poem, composed in 1833, Ulysses laments his disinterest in a return to Ithaca and prompts themes of realized mortality and persevering willpower. The poem’s final stanza concludes with a statement of candid rationality that ranks the longevity of will high above that of fleeting strength that is subjective to both time and predetermined fate: “We are not now that strength which in old days/ Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts,/ Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will/ To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield” (Tennyson, “Ulysses,” lines 66-70). Although it would seem that the lines are intended as an alternative conclusion to Ulysses’s journey by having him choose to continue sailing rather than returning to Ithaca, they resound quite profoundly within the present context. This concept of

In spite of the interplay and predefined notions of the divine, both women react forcibly to the departure and prolonged absence of their truest love, each establishing themselves as willful and passionate characters. For Penelope of Homer’s The Odyssey, strength and deliberate intention translates through her unflinching faithfulness to Ulysses and staunch belief in his imminent return. Expressing longing and the sorrow felt in her husband’s prolonged absence through rational emotions, Penelope’s character becomes one worthy of high admiration; bearing an ideal balance of inner strength and a relatable nature. Quite antithetically, Dido’s umbrageous nature disabled her from seeing beyond the perceived betrayal of Aeneas, and rather than robing herself in hope, strength, and unwavering faithfulness, she took matters into her own hands and cut short any prospect of perseverance and earthly reunification. While Penelope admirably accepts the Ulysses’s calling and faithfully awaits his return from the journey he is meant to conquer, Dido refuses to accept that Aeneas’s departure is of the same divine origin, and instead of standing by her lover’s predestined fate, she proclaims betrayal and brazenly