The Aeneid by Virgil Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Aeneid
Book Review: I sing of a great translation
Summary: 5 Stars
Roman society was enamoured of Greek culture -- many of the best 'Roman' things were Greek; the major gods were derivative of the Greek pantheon; philosophy, literature, science, political ideals, architecture -- all this was adopted from the Greeks. It makes sense that, at the point of their ascendancy in the world, they would long for an epic history similar to the Homeric legends; the Iliad and the Odyssey, written some 500 years after the actual events they depict, tell of the heroism of the Greeks in their battle against Troy (Ilium). The Aeneid, written by Vergil 700 years after Homer, at the commission of Augustus (himself in the process of consolidating his authority over Rome), turns the heroic victory of the much-admired Greeks on its head by postulating a survivor from Troy, Aeneas, who undergoes as journey akin to the Odyssey, even further afield.
Vergil constructs Aeneas, a very minor character in the Iliad, as the princely survivor and pilgrim from Troy, on a journey through the Mediterranean in search of a new home. According to Fitzgerald, who wrote a brief postscript to the poem, Vergil created a Homeric hero set in a Homeric age, purposefully following the Iliad and Odyssey as if they were formula, in the way that many a Hollywood director follows the formulaic pattern of past successful films. Vergil did not create the Trojan legend of Roman origins, but his poem solidified the notion in popular and scholarly sentiment.
Vergil sets the seeds for future animosity between Carthage and Rome in the Aeneid, too -- the curse of queen Dido on the descendants of Aeneas of never-ending strife played into then-recent recollections of war in the Roman mind. Books I through VI are much more studied than VII through XII, but the whole of the Aeneid is a spectacular tale.
Fitzgerald's modern and accessible translation makes the Aeneid really come to life for modern readers. It is a verse translation, not forced into word-by-word construction nor into false, flowery and stuffy structured verse that would seem formal and distant. This is a language familiar to modern readers, just as Vergil's Latin would have been readily accessible to the listeners and readers of his time.
Vergil died before he could complete the story. He wished it to be burned; fortunately, Augustus had other ideas. Still, there are incomplete lines and thoughts, and occasional conflicts in the storyline that one assumes might have been worked out in the end, had more editing time been available. Despite these, the Aeneid remains a masterpiece, and Fitzgerald's translation will be a standard bearer for some time to come.
Book Review: You don't have to live like a refugee
Summary: 5 Stars
I urge everyone who hasn't read this to do so, and those who have to pick it up again. A strange book, borrowing nearly everything from other works in antiquity, it remains entirely original. Virgil takes his readers through the adventures of a band of refugees who are on their way to their destiny, the founding of the Roman republic. Unlike Odysseus, Aeneas is fleeing defeat and destruction, not returning to his homeland as a conquering hero.
It's a great book. Aeneas, full of nobility, is not outsized in nearly inhuman greatness like Achilles. He's not the resourceful Everyman that Odysseus is. Aeneas is bound by duty and piety and finds his identity in them. There's something here that a lot of fathers and sons can relate to, the grim determination to be faithful to clan and vocation.
There's also a disturbing sense of circularity here. According to legend, Dardanus, the founder of Troy, was an emigrant from Italy, so his descendant, the refugee Aeneas, is also returning to a storied ancestral homeland in returning to Latium. In completing this circle, he finds himself in Carthage with Queen Dido, dooming her and setting up an emnity between Rome and Carthage that will come to fruition in the bloody Punic Wars that result in the total destruction of Carthage. Upon landing in Latium, he wrests the princess Lavinia from a would-be suitor Turnus, thus reenacting the ravishing of Helen by Alexander, and in the same manner, this causes a bloody war and siege. All history is a vertiginous cycle, round and round, no rest from the iron cycles of history, no respite from the caprices of the gods.
At the center of this is a journey to the underworld, similar to the one in the Odyssey. Unlike that trip, in this journey our hero passes through the netherworld to the upper regions, the Elysian fields, which somehow seem less than heavenly: they appear more like a pleasant distracting earthly holiday in a nice bit of real estate. From this vantage, Aeneas's dead father Anchises surveys future Roman history and the critical role his descendents will play in it.
Fitzgerald's translation is commendable. A friend compared it to Ray Bradbury, and I quite like that: strong, vigorous, manly, unpretentious. This a gift to give yourself, something you can keep going back to your whole life.
Book Review: Aeneid The Great
Summary: 5 Stars
This classic Roman book is based on the life of Aeneid, son of Venus (Aphrodite in Greek Culture). Home, the writter, writes about Aeneids trubles, and his misfortunes. It is a great adventure book that you will fall in love with, such as my peers and myself. Enjoy!Book Review: The Gods Favor the Bold
Summary: 5 Stars
Virgil's epic tale of Rome's origins are wonderfully recited in Robert Fitzgerald's faithful translation. A great tale on fate, fortune, and courage by one of the greatest Latin writers.
The story follows the travels of the Trojan prince Aeneas who, along with a few other countrymen, are able to flee the sack of Troy by the Greeks. Jupiter is set on making Aeneas and his people great but not before they pass certain trials and tribulations. Prince Aeneas sails to Carthage on his way to Italy and Queen Dido falls madly in love with him. Knowing that his destiny lies elsewhere, Aeneas continues on his voyage and Queen Dido kills herself. Aeneas finally disembarks in the fields of Latium but at first encounters hostile Latin tribes under the rule of King Latinus. After some fighting, the two make a pact and merge as one people setting the stage for the future founding of Rome by Romulus.
This is a great story on par with 'The Iliad' and 'The Odyssey.' It is perhaps even more fictional than the 'Iliad' as Rome was founded more than 400 years after the Trojan War by Romulus in 753 B.C. As Romulus and Remus were the sons of Iuli and so the grandchildren of Aeneas, the latter would have been alive no later than the mid-9th Century B.C. Furthermore, Carthage wasn't founded until about the 9th Century which was 300 years after the fall of Troy. Unless Aeneas lived to a canonic age, it is very unlikely that he or the Trojans had anything to do with the founding of Rome. Such tales of Aeneas and the founding of Rome coincide more closely with the earliest Greek colonial settlements in Sicily, Italy, and southern France in the 9th Century and it is probably from there that the Romans derived this fancy tale as to their origins. The perpetuation of such tales probably had political reasons in either supporting political union with the Greek colonial city-states or an extended political/military campaign against them. In any case, Fitzgerald's background in poetry brings the story to life and makes it a pleasant reading experience: it's a great buy.
Book Review: FITZGERALD vs. MANDELBAUM
Summary: 5 Stars
I've read both translations, many many times. From an educational perspective, especially for the classics student, I would recommend the Mandelbaum translation, as the language more closely matches the visually breathtaking Latin of the original. However, for someone just picking it up to read it, with perhaps little side-knowledge, the Fitzgerald version is far more captivating. It is an easier read, more like modern prose (relatively speaking, of course), and the images are far clearer.