I am so blessed to have my physics professor, who was an undergraduate research advisor for me, share his love for classics with me through this textbook.

The best way to read the Aeneid is in Latin, of course!

Didn't finish the entire thing, but had a blast translating most of Book I and II into English for Latin class. Plenty of helpful notes and vocab list in the back as aids.

trauma

The reason I rate this book so highly is largely because of the insight we get into ancient Rome, and because this book has really stood the test of time. I found the narrative very interesting because I am a huge fan of Roman history. I should also say that the story was entertaining, and I generally had no problem following the plot, even though this is in poetic form. I did occasionally have issues keeping track of who is who and who was on which side when it came to minor characters (Greek names). Despite that, I still had a good feel for what was going on and I enjoyed reading about the heroics from both sides.

I read this in Latin. I am a nerd.

I really want to read this in Latin, because it’s said that Virgil was so meticulous with his prose that he only wrote three lines of poetry per day.

Anyways, this is probably my tentative favourite piece of epic poetry. The attention to writerly craft totally translates to English- I mean- the whole thing is just stunningly beautiful and not in a meandering way. Virgil’s metaphorical style and narrative rhythm is quite poignant.

I’d also like to say Aeneas is a compelling third protagonist in this trilogy of sorts. We go from Achilles’s hypermasculinity, to Ulysses’s smarmy wit, and ending with Aeneas who is sombrely and quietly mournful. It’s a powerful and gorgeous story.

“Like a god in shoulders and face: since his mother had herself imparted to her son beauty to his hair; a glow of youth, and joyful charm to his eyes: like the glory art can give to ivory, or when silver or Parian marble is surrounded by gold”

“now it spews black clouds into the sky, smoking,
with pitch-black turbulence, and glowing ashes,
and throws up balls of flame, licking the stars:
now it hurls high the rocks it vomits, and the mountain’s
torn entrails, and gathers molten lava together in the air
with a roar, boiling from its lowest depths.”

did not enjoy….homer did it better….

I probably can't appreciate the poetry of this as I'm reading it in English. I remember Dante calls Virgil a great poet, not a story teller. The thing reads like Homeric fan-fiction, with too many characters and too many last stands.

very helpful for the high school classroom or for any first time reader.

I read the English translation and then I translated this one. It was hard. This is only the first six books and it took so much longer than the translated 12 books I read. But it was so worth it; the poetry was incomparable between the English and the Latin.

The wonderful, thought-provoking piece of propaganda rendered in beautiful Latin. I think the earlier books are better (esp. Books 2 & 4) while the rest of them (1, 3, 5) focus too much on wandering around and lack the narrative focus which I like from books 2 and 4. Nonetheless, it’s clear that Virgil chose this alternating structure to give these first few books a sense of restlessness as Aeneas searches for a new home, thus balancing out his Odyssey-like journey with occasional detours wherein characters and plot can be further developed. Because the next six books focus on war, it seems to me like Virgil is juggling the two epic traditions (found in the Iliad and the Odyssey) on a number of levels. That he can do this so well is impressive, but I’m not sure how much I’m enjoying the balancing act.