2 Audley Square
Mayfair, London W1K
UK
Established in 1994, The Course offers exciting lectures in Art History, Literature and Music.
“Our classic, the classic of all Europe, is Virgil”, said T S Eliot in 1944. 75 years on, the UK is scheduled to leave the EU, but not European culture. What better moment could there be to retrace the journey Virgil created for Aeneas: escape from the Trojan inferno, voyage to Carthage, love for Dido, abandonment of her to found a new Troy at Rome, and pilgrimage to the Underworld, a golden bough as passport. Artists picture it all as if they travelled with him.
Aeneas Breaks a Siege and Faces Single Combat (x, xi, xii; the Aeneid’s legacy)
On the battlefield, Evander’s son Pallas is lost to Turnus’s spear. Aeneas kills several Latin chiefs. A truce allows the dead to be buried. Then, in renewed fighting, the Latins lose ground. Aeneas and Turnus meet face to face. Aeneas triumphs. The Aeneid is complete. But what is its legacy to poetry and art? Bazin, Cugnot, Dimier, Falguiere, Giordano, Perrin, and surprise ‘guests’.