SOURCE: "Basic Themes," in The Art of Vergil: Image and Symbol in the Aeneid, translated by Gerda Seligson, The University of Michigan Press, 1962, pp. 13–33.

In the following excerpt, Pöschl analyzes the early scenes of the Aeneid, in which the "symbolic relation between nature and politics, myth and history" establishes the themes of the epic as a whole.

The first climactic point in the Aeneid—the event that sets the tone, arousing and preparing the reader's mind for the extraordinary actions about to take place—is the storm which drives Aeneas to the shores of Carthage. Its introductory position in the poem indicates that it is more than just another episode in the destiny of the homeless Trojans. The pulsating breath of tragedy and the atmosphere of wild pathos embody with the greatest compression the nature of the emotion which permeates the whole poem. It is, as it...