Heroes (poem) Essay Questions

What is Creeley's main issue with traditional hero narratives?

For Creeley, the big problem with most hero stories is the way they present their protagonist. Using the examples of Hercules and Aeneas, Creeley states almost all of these myths and legends simply have their heroes rushing from one epic task to another, acting in a way that is barely legible as human. As he notes in later stanzas, he believes that these stories should highlight their heroes' vulnerabilities. The only example he finds of this in the Aeneid is the moment in which Aeneas confronts his mortality before journeying to the underworld to see his father. By the poem's end, Creeley seems to hope that people will take up this new, more nuanced, way of reading and writing hero stories.

Why does Creeley choose to leave Sibyl's quote in the Aeneid untranslated?

Creeley chooses to leave Sibyl's words to Aeneas, "hoc opus, hic labor est" ("that is the task, that is the labor"), untranslated for several reasons. The first is that it preserves a kind of mysticism around the figure of Sibyl. In Virgil's poem, she is a priestess who helps Aeneas journey to the underworld. The second is that it subtly elevates Creeley's position as the speaker of the poem. It makes it clear that for all of his critiques of Virgil's work, he has an in-depth knowledge and close familiarity with it. This becomes particularly important in the next stanza, when Creeley seems to label Virgil's style of heroic epic as outdated. He needs to show he is well-versed in the subject he is commenting on.