It is too easy to focus on the sufferings of Dido and to ignore those of Aeneas or even blame him for Dido's death.

• A. Gildenhard and Henderson
• B. Ian Du Quesnay
• C. Susanna Morton Braund
• D. Richard Jenkyns

Answer: (B)

The idea this item tests is reading the Dido episode with moral complexity, not reducing it to a single emotional focus or blaming one character outright. The best choice names Ian Du Quesnay, because his scholarship emphasizes a balanced, two-sided reading of Vergil’s epic: Vergil invites the reader to feel for Dido’s suffering while also weighing Aeneas’s burdens, duties, and the larger divine and political plan at work. This approach argues that the tragedy isn’t best understood by choosing sides but by considering how both characters are shaped by fate, pietas, and the epic’s structure, which often produces morally intricate outcomes.

In this light, the other scholars listed contribute valuable perspectives but tend to foreground different angles. For example, Susanna Morton Braund is well known for exploring rhetoric, gender, and the Dido episode in ways that highlight persuasion and voice; Richard Jenkyns often focuses on Virgil’s style and place within the classical tradition; and Gildenhard and Henderson engage with other aspects of epic reception and interpretation. While these viewpoints enrich Aeneid study, they don’t single out the particular balanced reading that foregrounds both sides of the suffering and questions quick blame in the way Ian Du Quesnay does.