Summary:
A comparison of the portrayal of women in Virgil's "The Aeneid" and John Milton's "Paradise Lost." Both Virgil and Milton inextricably link femininity with emotional instability and portray women as a threat to the divine higher order of things and whose emotions can bring about the downfall of not just the men around them, but ultimately even whole nations. However, Milton presents femininity as a greater threat than Virgil; Milton describes the ability of a woman to subvert his tripartite hierarchy that places God above man, and man above woman, whereas Virgil never allows the male characters in the Aeneid to forget their superiority over women.
When Virgil and Milton wrote their epic poems, they were both writing for societies which plainly did not believe in equality of the sexes. The seventeenth century poet, John Milton, takes the attitude common to the time period while portraying Eve - the only female character in the whole of Paradise Lost: the belief that women were weak, inferior and even soulless. Likewise, Virgil's portrayal of the women in the Aeneid as temptresses, manipulators, interferers is in agreement with how ancient Roman society viewed women. Both Virgil and Milton inextricably link femininity with emotional instability (Greek word furor) by showing how the women allow themselves to be overcome with emotions which can bring about the downfall of not just the men around them, but ultimately even whole nations.
Both Virgil and Milton portray femininity and women.....
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