Fato Profugus: The Exile?s Passage Through Virgil and Said

39 Pages·2014·0.24 MB·English

by  Keegan Robert Dufty

Wesleyan University The Honors College

Fato Profugus:
The Exile’s Passage Through Virgil and Said

by

Keegan R. Dufty
Class of 2014

An essay submitted to the
faculty of Wesleyan University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
Degree of Bachelor of Arts
with Departmental Honors from the College of Letters

Middletown, Connecticut April, 2014

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Acknowledgements

This essay was by no means a solo-project and, without the help of those mentioned
in this section, it would not be here today.
First and foremost, I owe a tremendous thank you to Professor Joseph Fitzpatrick, my
advisor. It is not an easy job to advise a written work, making sure to contain the
focus while still allowing the writer’s ideas to develop on their own, Professor
Fitzpatrick handled this task with ease. It was a pleasure to work, side by side, with a
man as enthusiastic about this subject as I was. I owe this paper to him.
To Professor Khachig Tölölyan, it has been an extraordinary pleasure taking classes
with you for the past two years. It was in one of those classes where I first read
Edward Said, and the idea for this essay was born. Thank you for everything.
To Professor Kari Weil, thank you for answering every question I could possibly
muster about the guidelines for this essay.
To my loyal housemates: EM, MMS, PH, NS, and NP, thank you for your
unwavering support in all things.
In researching for this project, I came to appreciate my home, more and more. I am
not an exile, and neither is my family, but I think, together, we have found the
essence that makes home so special. To my parents, all of them, thank you for making
me feel at home wherever I was.
Finally, thank you to G and P, who taught me that the old stories still matter.

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Introduction

In his work, “Reflections on Exile,” Edward Said gives an account of the
experience, the burden, and ultimately the permanent struggle of the exile. Exile is,
Said writes, “a condition legislated to deny dignity-- to deny identity to people”
(175). “Reflections on Exile” is meant to show exile as an overwhelmingly lonely
experience. To be an exile is to lose one’s history, one’s people; to be an exile is to
disappear. Said believes that only those who have experienced exile are the ones who
can understand it. It is not a question of being the “other,” as being the “other”
implies that one belongs somewhere, just not here. The exile belongs nowhere.
In the exile’s world, nothing is familiar. Said’s message is that beneath all of
the theory, what people want is to feel grounded in the world and at home. As the
exile cannot find this grounding, he must try to replicate it. Herein lies the continual
struggle of exile: to forge a new identity out of the pieces of the past, and to belong in
a world that appears to be out of space. However, the harder the exile tries to belong,
the further away he feels from home. Despite these difficulties, Said reiterates that
there is no choice in exile and that the struggle to find roots, in a foreign state of
being and mind, is shared by all: “Exile is not, after all, a matter of choice: you are
born into it, or it happens to you. But, provided that the exile refuses to sit on the
sidelines nursing a wound, there are things to be learned: he or she must cultivate a
scrupulous (not indulgent or sulky) subjectivity” (Said 184). In this quest for a
“scrupulous subjectivity,” the exile must leave behind an old world and strive to find
an identity in a new one.
Of the many theorists, authors, and poets that Said draws on for his essay,
Georg Lukács stands very close to the core of the exile’s struggle. In The Theory of

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the Novel, Lukács introduces the idea that the novel acts as a principal form of
“transcendental homelessness,” a term that Said then draws into his work on the exile.
Lukács structures his argument around the dichotomy of the epic and the novel. In the
epic, specifically Homer, he argues that the world’s totality is evident to all. While
divinity and fate may appear to be distant from the world of Man, they are still
understood and treated as part of it. Life in the epic world encompasses this totality,
Lukács argues, because nothing points to a higher reality outside the borders of
understanding. And further, Man has no desire to venture outside these borders
because not only is he unaware that anything exists beyond his current perception, but
also because all of the meaning he seeks is ready and present in his surroundings.
There is no “otherness for the soul” in the epic, and it is free to live through its
adventures in the “world of objects” because even though the soul and the world of
materials may be distant, they are never strangers (29-30).
This is principally what separates the epic from the novel: in the epic, the
hero’s soul can find meaning in the world around him, as Lukács writes, ”it is the
adequacy of the deeds to the soul’s inner demand for greatness, for unfolding, for
wholeness” (Lukács 30). Meaning surrounds the epic hero, and all his soul has to do
to achieve greatness, or “wholeness,” is to set out into the world and find it. This
controlled totality of epic life, Lukács argues, has since been broken. In the new
world, the world of the novel, to be a man is to be solitary. “No light radiates any
longer from within into the world of events, into its vast complexity to which the soul
is a stranger” (Lukács 36). Whereas meaning was always present in the epic, in the
unfamiliar landscape of the novel the soul no longer knows the path to that meaning.
The problem lies in that in order to become whole, the soul must encounter man-

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made structures in the “world of objects” and interact with them. In the epic, although
distant from the soul, these structures still awoke interiority, and they still carried
meaning. In the novel, these structures no longer awaken interiority; they no longer
carry the meaning that the soul seeks.
It is here that Lukács introduces the concept of the transcendental
homelessness:
Of madness the epic knows nothing…. For crime and madness are
objectivations of transcendental homelessness—the homelessness of an action
in the human order of social relations, the homelessness of a soul in the ideal
order of a supra-personal system of values. Every form is the resolution of a
fundamental dissonance of existence; every form restores the absurd to its
proper place as the vehicle, the necessary condition of meaning. (Lukács 61)

Simply put, transcendental homelessness encompasses the soul’s feeling that it no
longer belongs in the realm of human action. The soul will always try to close the gap
between itself and deeds, but the two are separated by an unbridgeable chasm.
Whereas the epic takes place in a totality of life that is formed by those who live
within it, the novel acts as a vehicle to reveal a totality of life that must be
unconcealed and constructed. Lukács writes, “The epic individual, the hero of the
novel, is the product of estrangement from the outside world” (Lukács 65). Here the
link between Lukács and Said becomes clear: just as the exile must struggle to form
an identity in a completely unfamiliar and new world, so too must the soul. In its
quest for wholeness and belonging, the soul seeks meaning in a place both strange
and distant. However, one should note that Said expands on this idea of
transcendental homelessness in a way that strays from Lukács’ meaning. Said writes:
Classical epics, Lukács wrote, emanate from settled cultures in which values
are clear, identities stable, life unchanging. The European novel is grounded in
precisely the opposite experience, that of a changing society in which an
itinerant and disinherited middle-class hero or heroine seeks to construct a
new world that somewhat resembles an old one left behind forever. In the epic

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there is no other world, only the finality of this one. Odysseus returns to
Ithaca after years of wandering; Achilles will die because he cannot escape his
fate. The novel, however, exists because other worlds may exist, alternative
for bourgeois speculators, wanderers, exiles. (Said 182)

Take note here, because Said’s description of the novel and its representation of
“transcendental homelessness” recollects the plot of Virgil’s The Aeneid. Although
The Aeneid is an epic, it also shares a number of essential themes, specifically that of
exile, with the novel. The importance of exile in The Aeneid can be read immediately
from its opening lines:
Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit
litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram;
multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem,
inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum,
Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae. (I, 1-7)

Aeneas spends years leading the remnants of his native people in search of a new,
promised home. Their progress is impeded by rulers, warring tribes, storms, and of
course, the wrath the goddess Juno. In observing various translations of the opening
lines of the epic, the reader will see both how exile is positioned to be a driving force
throughout the entire work and how it contributes to Aeneas’ suffering.
Allen Mandelbaum, in his translation, stays closest to the Virgil’s original
opening lines, as seen above. Mandelbaum writes,
I sing of arms and of a man: his fate
had made him fugitive; he was the first
to journey from the coasts of Troy as far
as Italy and the Lavinian shores. (I, 1-4)

Mandelbaum’s use of the word, “fugitive” comes straight from the Latin “profugus,”
which means “fleeing,” “fugitive,” “banished,” or “migratory.” In describing Aeneas
as a “fugitive,” he forces him to flee. It is only after fleeing that he becomes an exile.

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In Aeneas’ role as a “fugitive,” his past is not only portrayed as a lost piece that
haunts his every move, but also as a precursor to his exile. Aeneas flees from burning
Troy, from passionate Dido, from Juno’s wrath, all which represent different facets of
exile.
C. Day Lewis constructs a similar image in his opening lines. He writes,
I tell about war and the hero who first from Troy’s frontier,
Displaced by destiny, came to Lavinian shores,
To Italy- a man much travailed on sea and land
By the powers above, because of the brooding anger of Juno,
Suffering much in war until he could found a city
And march his gods into Latium… (I, 1-6)

This image of displacement not only describes Aeneas’ escape from Troy in another
light, but it also serves as a link to the modern vocabulary of exile. In its modern
context, masses of exiles are “displaced,” and must struggle through the
consequences. The reader sees a man who struggles against the wrath of a goddess, as
well as a man who struggles against the burden of homelessness.
It is Kevin Guinagh’s translation which explicitly refers to Aeneas as an exile,
Guinagh writes,
I sing of arms and the man who, fated to be an exile, was the
first to come from the coasts of Troy to Italy and its shores
near Lavinium, a man who was much harassed on land and sea
by divine power on account of the relentless anger of savage
Juno. (I, 1-4)

In these opening lines, what is most interesting is that Guinagh ties Aeneas’ fate to
being an exile, rather than to founding Rome. This is no longer the tale of a man kept
from his destiny by a goddess’ rage, but rather it is the journey of a man destined to
wander in search of a new home for his people.

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Similar to Guinagh’s translation, Dryden fleshes out Virgil’s language by
separating Juno’s anger, and Aeneas’ fate, escape, and exile. In his translation, the
opening lines read,
Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate,
And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate,
Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan shore.
Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,
And in the doubtful war, before he won
The Latian realm, and built the destin’d town;
His banish’d gods restor’d to rites divine. (I, 1-6)

The separation of “expell’d” and “exil’d” is significant, because it shows that exile
has more weight to it than just being denied one’s native home. This separation opens
the door for the added difficulties and anxieties of exile, as can be seen in the line,
“His banish’d gods restor’d to rites divine.” This shows that in Aeneas’ exile, he is
not just fighting to reach his destiny, but he is fighting to preserve the traditions of his
homeland. Aeneas’ journey is not one for personal glory, but to restore old ways of
life, to revive a dying people. It is the present fear of a past way of life being
forgotten, and the inherent doubt that Dryden also mentions that are key parts of
exile.
Similarities to Dryden’s attempt to provide a better picture of Aeneas as an
exile lie in Robert Fagles’ translation. He writes,
Wars and man I sing— an exile driven on by Fate,
he was the fist to flee the coast of Troy,
destined to reach Lavinian shores and Italian soil,
yet many blows he took on land and sea from the gods above—
thanks to cruel Juno’s relentless rage— and many losses
he bore in battle too, before he could found a city,
……………
Why did she force a man, so famous for his devotion,
to brave such rounds of hardship, bear such trials? (I, 1-12)

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Again, the reader observes the difference in the use of “exile” and “fate”. Aeneas is
an exile because of Troy’s destruction, his subsequent wandering, and search for a
new home. Fagles like Dryden, uses language that emphasizes the difficulties of
Aeneas’s exile, he writes of how Aeneas must “flee the coast of Troy,” and the “so
many losses he bore in battle too, before he could found a city, and bring his gods to
Latium.” The words “flee” and “losses,” combined with the later use of “hardship”
and “trials,” paint a vivid picture. These words show Aeneas as a man tortured by
more than just the gods.1
One can already see from these opening passages how exile is
positioned to drive the events of the story. Virgil created an epic work that split from
its predecessors in its use of exile as a central theme. This paper will explore how
exile is portrayed and represented in The Aeneid , The Inferno, and “Reflections on
Exile”. It will investigate Virgil’s use of exile in the work; and will seek comparisons
to the later works of Dante and Said: focusing around Aeneas’ exile, the presence of
wandering in the Underworld, and ultimately the love for one’s homeland and nation.

1 For the rest of the essay I will be referring to the editions of The Aeneid translated
by Robert Fagles and Allen Mandelbaum

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Section 1
The severity of Aeneas’ exiled condition is not just due to the fact that, by
definition of exile, he must wander from country to country, coast to coast. What
exacerbate his exile are the difficulties facing someone without a homeland who
wants to fit into Virgil’s epic world. This is a place with such rigid boundaries and
well-defined states that it is completely unforgiving to one who does not belong to it.
In his Theory of the Novel, Lukács describes all of epic life happening within a sphere
in which there was no unknown. There were no crises of identity, and no confusion as
to where one belonged or what one’s life purpose was. As Lukács writes of Homer,
“The Greek knew only answers but no questions, only solutions (even if enigmatic
ones) but no riddles, only forms but no chaos” (Lukács 31). While Lukács writes here
of philosophical stability, his point also rings true for physical security in Homer’s
society. There was very little mobility in epic life; one lived and died as a part of one
state. When discussing the Aeneid, one must keep in mind that Lukács’ idea of the
epic is specific to Homer’s works. The epic worlds of Homer and Lukács center
around characters whose acts are enabled by the fact that their worlds have, and
always will, make perfect sense. Virgil’s epic differs in that it is centered around a
man, and more so a people, who simply long for this rootedness, in place or identity,
that figures in Homer or Lukács are never without.
First and foremost, all of Lukács epic society exists within the rigid borders of
human understanding, with the epic form as a type of natural outgrowth from these
structures, rules, and certainties. Everything about this epic society originates within
itself, whereas, Roman society does not function in the same way. In 29 BC, when the
work was begun, Rome was in a dangerous age of transition. Its author, Virgil, had

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