#ecphrasis

Jump the Broom The Phoney War on Slapstick Ends... Times like this began with General Approval in deep hotchpotch jaw-jaw with selfies back of Nico’s bar and grill with the clam-baked mongrel hoc polloi…

Preston Choe ‘17

“I was drawn (pun not intended) to the scene of the River Styx and Charon the Boatman because it was so vivid in its description and action, and I had a clear sense of how I imagined the setting would look on paper. Plus, the idea of this boatman has long intrigued me since I learned of the Underworld in lower school - who is he, why is his job what it is, etc. I decided to depict the part, specifically, where huge Aeneas enters the boat because it was pretty darn cool to see our protagonist bypass such strict laws on behalf of his journey and his piety and honor towards his father. I've always liked the uber-masculine armored Trojan look, so I chose that for my Aeneas' appearance as opposed to more casual clothes. It also gives more of a sense of preparedness and unease in an unfamiliar and spooky place. In the case of Charon, I chose the faceless hooded figure due to my seeing him as not exactly human, but not exactly a ghost either, just a bridge between both. The Sibyl was more an afterthought, as she wasn't as significant to this particular moment as the other two, but I included her on the dock (wearing her robe she had hid the golden bough in) for accuracy. Lastly, the appearance of the ghost on the bench was drawn pretty much directly from popular media, for no particular reason, and is depicted as a very slightly humanoid cloud (like the kind a child would impersonate with a sheet). On the right side is the silent grove the Sibyl and Aeneas were coming from, and on the left is a sort of foreshadowing to what happens after this scene, when they encounter Cerberus. I tried to distance the sentinel to give a sense of the scale of the Underworld, and added a background for him to be a part of (with some more river in the back as well). All in all, a very fun scene to draw, and not having to deal with faces was a plus as well!”

“My project is about the Gates of Sleep; the calmer parts with the sort of fluttery high notes are the shades passing through the gate; then the gods of sleep create false dreams to send up, and the faster-paced part in the middle are the lies going through the gate, and at the end Aeneas walks through the false gate. The Latin depicts the gates themselves.”

“In this half music video, half abstract film, half sound collage, half skit, Pickering examines Dido and Aeneas's encounter in the underworld and transforms it into a visual and audio medium. Pickering uses many nuances throughout this piece, and it seems as if every detail was added and perfected for a reason. For example, in the beginning, Dido is shown listening to a composition by the musician Donnie Trumpet entitled "Don't Leave." This scene finds her remembering and reliving the moments shortly before and after Aeneas's unfortunate departure. This song resurfaces at the end of the piece, but this time, ironically, it expresses Aeneas's feelings of guilt and sorrow as Dido walks away from him back to her former lover Sychaeus. "I saw the opportunity to take one of my favorite scenes from the Aeneid and make it more accessible," Pickering says. "Virgil created this masterpiece. I am merely his messenger and translator."

“My piece is based off of Cy Twombly’s Shade of Achilles, Patroclus, and Hector from his 50 Days at Iliam installation at the Philadelphia Museum of Art [pictured below Rachel’s piece]. I was drawn to this collection because it recontextualizes a classical text with contemporary art and gives it a new depth and meaning. Also, on a more aesthetic level, the colors that Twombly uses are saturated and powerful in a way that is not often seen; the red used in this series is so saturated that it looks like blood. In my piece, I chose to depict the scene where Dido chooses Sychaeus over Aeneas in the underworld. Dido was painted red because she was often described with the word “furens” and because of the way she committed suicide certainly involved blood. Sychaeus is blue fading into purple showing his connection to Dido. Aeneas is set far apart from the lovers and is painted black due to his detachment from the situation. The text below Aeneas (“like a man who sees, or thinks he sees”) furthers the sense of separation in this situation as he is not able to fully grasp how he has betrayed Dido. “Infelix Dido,” the text that describes Dido, is a phrase that is repeated many times in the text and gives the viewer an idea of the betrayal that she has felt. Sychaeus is the “husband in former times” to show his connection to Dido.”

You complemented me on my use of Styx as the second transformation saying that some other Greek author would be proud, but really I had the Riordan description in my mind where he states the Styx is polluted with things the dead leave when they leave their lives. I also wanted to include other branches for death that aren't talked about in The Aeneid such as my idea to have Caeneus being stabbed by an Enemy soldier who transforms into Thanatos before Caeneus turns into a butterfly and flies to the Styx but that changed when I read the cannon about Caeneus being immune to weapons and therefore crushed by centaurs. Parts where I diverged from cannon included leaving out the wedding that started the fight as it would be too long and hastening Caeneus's death would also underline the idea that gender roles sucked on both sides. I also included a much nicer alternate ending with Diana's intervention because Being forced to spend eternity in a body you don't feel is even yours would just be too cruel.”

“My piece is a sestina, which is an unrhymed form of poetry containing six stanzas of six lines and one stanza of three lines.  The same six words are used at the end of each line in the six longer stanzas, and all six words are used in the last three lines.  I chose to write my sestina in Latin, and the poem retells the story of Aeneas as he pleads with Dido in the underworld.  I used the six words from the line of the Aeneid that I chose to be the last words of each line, and I ended the poem with the complete line.”