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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who will bury Palinurus' body?

2. What omen does everyone witness when Acestës is shooting arrows?

3. What portent appears relating to Iulus?

4. Who warns the Trojans not to trust in the wooden horse the Danaans left behind?

5. How do the Danaans get inside the walls of Troy?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are Neptune's feelings toward Troy and toward Aeneas? How do these feelings affect Aeneas' journey on the sea?

2. Why might the Trojan women have been tempted to set fire to the ships even without Juno and Iris befuddling them?

3. How does Aeneas make sure that people notice his son Iulus?

4. Compare and contrast the Greeks with the Trojans in the affair of the wooden horse.

5. Describe the Sibyl.

6. What instances in Book V reveal how the Trojans feel about burying their dead?

7. Why should Aeneas not have tried to found a city in Thrace?

8. Why are Dido's suitors so angry when she takes up with Aeneas?

9. What reversals of fate has Helenus faced?

10. Describe how Venus acts as a mother toward Aeneas.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The Aeneid is full of examples of images that pop up over and over again. Select one of the following and trace and evaluate examples of its use throughout the work:

1) thunderbolts and lightning

2) fire

3) hunting

4) snakes

5) storms.

Essay Topic 2

What role do the Muses play in the telling of this tale? When and why does Virgil call upon them? Upon which particular Muses does he rely?

Essay Topic 3

One of the main characteristics of epic poems such as The Aeneid (and The Iliad and The Odyssey) is that the poem starts "in medias res," or in the middle of the action. The narrative then reveals information about what came before through various means, such as characters telling tales of the past or the narrator providing background. Discuss how this work begins in the middle, what information the reader is eventually given about what happened before, how this information is provided, and what effect this structure has on the experience of reading the poem.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,076 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample