I’m a huge fan of propaganda, but I think I may not be a fan of fan fic. I was going into this with the hope that it would be fun, extreme, Latin propaganda, but The Aeneid is really more Trojan War fan fic, IMO. It’s the Phantom Menace to The Iliad’s Empire Strikes Back. It is seriously lame. I think Akira Kurosawa could have made a pretty decent movie of it because he likes to have people frenzy. There’s a lot of frenzying here. The dudes are all chest pound, blooooood, and the chicks are all More...

There are plenty of reviews here telling you why you should or shouldn't read book X. This review of Virgil's "Aeneid," the largely-completed first century BC nationalist epic poem that recounts the Trojan War and Aeneas's role in the eventual founding of Rome, will tell you instead why you should read a copy of "Aeneid" from a university library. Simply put: student annotations.

Nearly every book in a university catalog has been checked out at one time or another by a student reading it as prim More...

I'm not sure if this is the translation I read back when I did Classics at GCSE and A Level. It seems familiar, but of course, the story would be and two different close translations might still be similar. Anyway, with my course on Tragic Love in the Trojan War, I've had the urge to reread The Aeneid all term.

I can't imagine the loss to the world that it would have been if Vergil's wishes had been carried out when it came to the burning of the manuscript. Parts of The Aeneid are just beautiful More...

A gifted poet's account of playing Mario Brothers to level 7.
Expect a lot of "then Aeneas was told he needed to fetch a golden bough. But he could only obtain the bough if he completed such-and-such. So he did. Then he went to the underground world and gave the bough to the boatman, and the boatman therefore let him cross the river..." but with lyric flourish. It's maybe not Mario, but some side-scrolling platformer, definitely.

If I understand correctly, Virgil wrote it by order of Caesar August More...

The Aeneid is basically a sequel to the Iliad by Homer but told with a slant to Roman ideology and history. What Virgil has done with the Aeneid is to take Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and combine them into one work that takes the best out of the two originals and makes them valid and relevant to Roman sensibilities. (Just as Homer himself took the old legends and mythology of the Greeks and used them to create his two epic poems.)

Virgil does a wonderful job of keeping the reader engaged through th More...

I’ve been meaning to read the Aeneid for years. The Armorial Bearings of the City of Melbourne have the motto: Vires Acquirit Eundo which is taken from book four of the Aeneid. It translates as, “It gathers strength as it goes”. Melbourne’s first judge gave the young town the motto – but I’ve often wondered if those he gave it to had any idea that the reference is to sexual rumours spreading about Dido and Aeneas. Rumour being the swiftest of the Gods.

Anyway, there is a pop star who is called Di More...

Initial thoughts:

1. Translation reads quickly.

2. Translation seems oddly colloquial in some rare spots. Have to ask Dad if the Latin reflected the same informality in the exact wording.

To be clear and complete, this is not very often, maybe every 30 pages or so. It is certainly not a show-stopper.

e.g. ...Troilus in flight, his weapons flung aside, unlucky boy, no match for Achilles’ onslaught— horses haul him on, tangled behind an empty war-car, flat on his back, clinging still to the reins, hi More...

حماسه واسطوره، از دیرباز بخشی از فرهنگ ملل را تشکیل داده است. اگر ایرانیان «شاهنامه» و یونانیان «ایلیاد» و «اودیسه» را دارند و به نزد اقوام ژرمن «نیبلونگن» حماسه تلقی می شود، رومیان باستان نیز «انه اید» یا داستان انه را پاس داشته اند.
رومیان در کشورگشایی از یونانیان پیشتر رفتند و تا دیرزمانی بر عمده خاک اروپا و بخش هایی از آسیای صغیر حکم راندند، اما در ادب و هنر هیچگاه به پایه یونانیان نرسیدند و در مواردی بسیار، وامدار ادب یونانی اند. این نکته در انه اید به وضوح مشخص است. ویرژیل، سراینده داستان، More...

This is certainly not my favorite of the ancient epics (The Odyssey tops my list there -- how original of me!) Still, I must give due credit to Sarah Ruden for this rather remarkable translation of The Aeneid. I'm usually a fan of Robert Fagles' translations, but comparing the two side by side, I was quickly won over by Ruden's lovely lyrical poetry. I never thought I'd be caught up in the anticipation of learning the outcome of battle after gory battle, but Ruden had me pretty much enthralled-- More...

Virgil’s “Aeneid” is one of the great classical poems. In this translation, the esteemed team of Robert Fagles (translator) and Bernard Knox (author of the Introduction) reprise their partnership in Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey.”

This epic work begins with the destruction of Troy. Aeneas, one of the Trojans, escapes with many of his fellows and their families. The poem by the Roman poet Virgil outlines the founding of Rome by Aeneas. One interesting feature, as Know puts it, is the use of “charac More...

The epic song of wars and men. If blood, guts and epic poetry are you thing, this book is for you. Given the introductory words of the story, it is shocking how Aneas is pushed along by the Fates and the Gods, never does he have much free will or freedom of action. Rome, we are told, was founded out of Destiny-- not desire.

This may sound like a complaint to modern readers, but it is, in fact, the opposite. The passive voice is used masterfully and to great effect. It lays out the foundational m More...

The thing that makes this translation so great for me personally is that Fagles didn't try to adhere to the blank verse of every other translation I've read, and I think that's why it was so engaging (for some reason reading this particular epic in blank verse has failed to hold my interest in the past) - I've never felt so gripped by The Aeneid, and Fagles's methods really give it a certain oratory quality, like it's an epic bedtime story. That being said, every so often a certain modern phrase More...

The Aeneid is a brilliant ancient Roman poem.It was an epic tale of exile, and dislocation, despair and triumph. Virgil Consciously mirrored Homer's Odyssey,and so many familiar names pop up throughout the text. Although I enjoyed the descriptive passages of the warriors 'Aristeia', and do revel at times in gory scenes, The Aeneid had, to me, too many characters,too many battle scenes and too much blood and guts. The first couple of books or so in The Aeneid were thoroughly enjoyable, for exampl More...

St. Augustine is said to have memorized the whole book. So, I wanted to read it. Having read it, I don’t see why Augustine admired it so much--maybe for the language alone. If that were the reason, I could not say much because I heard the book, translated by Robert Fitzgerald, and heavy-handedly read by Christopher Ravenscroft in thick English accent.

I find this book boring for lack of detail, conversations, and character building. By the time the book is finished, we are still left not knowing More...

The story has a long history.A result of a bloody war between the trojan’s and the greek’s.If the “Book of Odyssey” tells the greeks expidition with the king of ethica Odyssius.That shows us how the kingdom of troy fell to the great hands of the greek.On the contrary, “The Book of Aeneid” tells how the surviving citizen of troy managed to escaped the burning city.Aeneas together with his fellow trojan’s ,and the heart gods that represents the fallen city.Assured and believed that a glorious futu More...

This epic follows Aeneas as, guided by Fate and piety/duty, he leads his band of Trojan refugees in search of their new homeland. Though derivative of the Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's story is more coherent, more tied to actual places/events, and more varied in phraseology and vivid description than Homer's poetry (which appears to be heavily shaped by oral tradition). Personally, I prefer Virgil's more literary style.

I have read two different Aeneid translations: Robert Fagles' and C. Day Lewis' More...

the ghost of Anchises channels the Buddha:

And he revealed the mysteries one by one.
"First, heaven and earth, the sea's expanse,
The moon's bright globe, the sun and stars
Are all sustained by a spirit within.
Every part is infused with Mind,
Which moves the Whole, the source of life
For man and beast and all winged things
And the monster of the marmoreal deep.
A divine fire pulses within those seeds of life,
A celestial energy, but it is slowed and dulled
By mortal frames, earthly bodies doomed to die. More...

The Aeneid by Virgil

It happened that I‘ve read The Aeneid close on the tail of The Iliad. Perhaps it should have been on purpose: they’re both very old, ancient to be more precise and deal with about the same subject matter:
Killing, then more killing and yet more…killing.

They even share a description of the howling, yelling associated with the extreme violence which takes place in both masterpieces
Then from his high couch our forefather Aeneas began: 'O queen .... like the
bellowing of a bull th More...

I'm finding it difficult to write a fair review of The Aeneid. Given that 2000 years have passed since Virgil wrote The Aeneid, I am completely ignorant of much of the context in which the book was written. Reading this (or any other of the Classics) gives a glimpse into an ancient culture, but as an alien to its cultural milieu, I don't know how to assimilate or comprehend what it is I am witnessing. So any sort of assessment I can make of this epic poem is naive. Perhaps this contextual discon More...

POW WOW WOW! the story has two different close translations which might still be similar. Anyway, with my course on Tragic Love in the Trojan War, I've had the urge to reread The Aeneid all three weeks and a half.

I can't imagine the loss to the world that it would have been if Vergil's wishes had been carried out when it came to the burning of the manuscript. Parts of The Aeneid are just beautiful -- Homer's work has its own vitality and its own robust beauty, but not the polish of Vergil's work More...

1. There were many key themes that echoed throughout Virgil’s The Aeneid. One certain theme was the common occurrence of the Fates and their influence on everyday life. Virgil brings about the idea that the main character or “hero”, Aeneas, already has a predetermined destiny that he has to fulfill and honor the Fates decision on what is to come of his life. The fates are sort of the supernatural power above the gods that many of the Roman’s believed controlled our lives and had already set in s More...

The Aeneid was written around 2,000 years ago, yet surprisingly it does contain deeper meaning and relevance to modern times. For this reason I actually found it interesting and, even though it was never fished, would argue it as one of the great classics of all time. While on the surface it merely tells the story of a hero (Aeneas) returning after the end of the Trojan war, when one has a deeper understanding of the political and ethical times, they may grasp a second layer of meaning. One of t More...

The Aeneid has long been hailed as one of the greatest literary classics in ancient poetry. It is by far one of the greatest pieces of Latin literature and Roman culture surviving. Written by Publius Vergilius Maro, the Aeneid was never actually finished. The story is there in full but metrically, Vergil never finished the poetic rhyme scheme of his final piece. It has been famously said that because of this, Vergil ordered in his will that the Aeneid be burned due to its incomplete state and th More...

*insert creative title here…*
Some of the major themes I recognized in The Aeneid by Vergil are fate vs. free will, power, love, war, and duty/honor. Fate vs. free will is one of the biggest themes studied in The Aeneid. I was constantly reminded throughout the book that the fate of Aeneas was to found Rome in Italy. In fact most of the events in the story are either inspired by what the gods have intended for Aeneas or are interrupted or altered because of his fate. Without giving too much away More...

When I began reading this book I felt very strongly that Virgil was not quite the author Homer was. When I finished reading the book, I was less convinced of that opinion.

Virgil is clearly writing in imitation of Homer. But imitating greatness is not to be seen as a weakness or fault in Virgil's own writing. In fact, quite to the contrary, Virgil was able to do in one epic poem what it took Homer two to do! Homer wrote one epic poem, The Iliad, to describe war for the Greeks. He followed that u More...

Oddly, I found I enjoyed the Aeneid much more than its inspiration, The Odyssey of Homer. It may have been the translations, but to a large degree, I think it was the pacing of the narratives. Where the Odyssey spends comparatively little time describing the adventures of Odysseus and far too much on all the “wrongs” committed against him by his wife’s suitors, the Aeneid is comparatively action-packed and straightforward. Sure, it takes a long time for Aeneas to get around to founding Rome, but More...

As with all books I like, I'm giving this five stars, without distinctions. It's the Robert Fitzgerald translation.
I'm by no means a classicist, so these are the comments of a rank amateur.
Trust the Romans to produce a made-to-order national epic, and one that relies fundamentally on Greek sources. The Greeks lived poetically and disastrously, while the pragmatic Romans administered an empire for centuries. Finally it became too weighty and cumbersome to be supported by its own resources, sort More...

The Odyssey is a story about becoming a man- living by your wits, having love and suffering for it, staying true in the course of adversity. The Iliad, meanwhile, is about the collective lives we lead. How it makes sense for us to board one of a thousand ships to fight an outraged honor against a love that doesn't exist anymore- that being a small part of a large thing is a noble endeavor. That groups reflect their leaders.

The Aeneid is different. It's a story about loss. The tragedy for Aeneas More...

OK so here's how it goes with translated texts (or at least the way I look at it): you can either read the original, or find a translation. For most of the English speaking world the second option is more frequently ventured. I feel like, though modern translations like Fitzgerald attempt a lack of translator presence, the shadow of the translator is never absent from the work. So, you might as well make mistakes into glories with a famous translation. For hundreds of years Dryden was the standa More...