ENGENDERING AENEAS’S SHIELD: THE UNION OF VENUS AND VULCAN AT AENEID 8.370–453

The Aeneid rarely credits women for their essential role in preserving and sustaining the peoples who would become Rome. This Irigaray-inspired reading, however, glimpses fleeting acknowledgment in the gender-bending sexual interaction between Venus and Vulcan at Aeneid 8.370–406, followed by the go...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Vergilius (1959) 2021-01, Vol.67, p.47-68
Main Author: Pandey, Nandini B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The Aeneid rarely credits women for their essential role in preserving and sustaining the peoples who would become Rome. This Irigaray-inspired reading, however, glimpses fleeting acknowledgment in the gender-bending sexual interaction between Venus and Vulcan at Aeneid 8.370–406, followed by the god’s comparison to a Roman housewife as he produces weapons for Aeneas in a uterine cave (8.407–453). As a metaliterary representation of the epic and Roman history, Aeneas’s shield reproduces similar phallocentric biases as the Aeneid. Yet its narrative “birth” from a commingling of feminine and masculine energies and elements alludes to women’s foundational role in creating Rome and the conditions for historical action, even as it colludes in their erasure from masculine versions of truth.
ISSN:0506-7294