Virgil's Aeneid

with explanatory notes.

No cover

Publius Vergilius Maro: Virgil's Aeneid (1876, D. Appleton and Company)

598 pages

English language

Published Nov. 19, 1876 by D. Appleton and Company.

OCLC Number:
8271399

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3 stars (1 review)

The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas's wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.

The hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the Iliad, composed in the 8th century BC. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas's wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Rome and a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous pietas, and fashioned this into a compelling founding …

44 editions

Review of 'The Aeneid' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Starting this with the Iliad still pretty fresh in my mind did it no favours; Homer casts a long and deep shadow.

Virgil's aim was bold, ambitious and entirely propagandist - he wanted to create an epic, mythic origin story for Rome and Romans and along the way laud Roman history and chose Homer as his model. In many respects his pastiche is spot-on. He creates an Iliad and an Oddysey for his hero, Aeneas, though he swaps the order, making him wander the Meditereanian world first and fight a war second. Homer's switching between divine and mortal action is also present - the gods keeping their petty squabbling family shtick up on Olympus and their great majesty when meddling in the lives of mortals - which they do here, as in the Iliad. Virgil even matches much of the style of Homer, with the extended metaphorical flourishes and descriptions …

Subjects

  • Aeneas (Legendary character) -- Poetry
  • Epic poetry, Latin