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The Aeneid - Virgil
Paperback Published: 1990-06-16 442 pages Amazon Sales Rank: 1095 List Price: $12.00 Lowest New Price: $6.84 (65 available) Lowest Used price: $4.69 (240 available)
Virgil's great epic transforms the Homeric tradition into a triumphal statement of the Roman civilizing mission. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald. Similar Books
An Epic Masterpiece! (5) - I actually translated The Aeneid from Latin to English when I was a junior in high school. However, I realized as I studied it for my Masters Epic/Mythology class, I was definitely not translating for comprehension. I must say that Homer has ruined me and I did not find Virgil's tragic view of life as inspiring... especially if we are to learn about Western civilization from it. If Aeneas went through the "ivory gate" of false dreams... what does that say about our fate as a country? This is a question still being debated about the propaganda this book supposedly represented of Roman history. Ultimately, I feel for Aeneas and his fate. It was his destiny to establish the foundations of Rome, and due to Juno's fury, those who loved him (especially Dido and Lavinia) suffered. Beautiful translation of a Classic (5) - Fitzgerald's version of the Aeneid is literature in its own right. Readable without being sing-songy, classic without being stilted, this translation kept me hooked on the Aeneas story long after high school Latin class ended at Book 6, and it stirred my imagination to such an extent that I got the impudent idea to emulate him in The Laviniad: An Epic Poem. And as for the poem itself, this seminal work of Western literature deeply inspired everyone from Augustine to Dante, but unfortunately seems to be passing out of academic consciousness. Vergil's Aeneid is the very pinnacle of Ancient Roman literature, a classic story of piety, duty, and honor as opposed to immediate gratification and selfish interest. It represents the very best ideals that ancient Rome had to offer. Perhaps in this modern age those virtues don't seem relevant--but if so, that's why we need this poem all the more. aweful translation, but not quite as bad as Fagles (1) - See my review of Fagles' Aeneid for more on the travesty of modern English translations of Virgil, also my review of Lombardo's translation of the Aeneid. As for Fitzgerald's translation in particular, it has for some strange reason been anointed by the universities as the 'standard'. It is hard to say why. The language is contemptibly low and unpoetical, the metre nonexistent, and even his knowledge of Latin distinctly imperfect. But then, one can become a Latin professor in America with no very extensive knowledge of Latin, much less of Latin poetry. More to the point, to translate a great poet requires a great poet who also knows intimately the language from which he is translating, and this is very, very rare. What makes the whole situation downright provoking is the publishers blurbs that tout all these perfectly aweful translations as 'wonderful', 'superb' etc; blurbs which the ignorant hoi polloi echo in their reviews on this site. What kind of a dope... (5) - Thinks the Aeneid begins with armis virumque? (For those missing the point, I'm poking fun at a reviewer who got the opening words of the epic in Latin wrong - it's "arma virumque cano") I've read this translation several times and taught out of it, and I think it's quite readable and faithful to the original. I don't think you can go wrong with Fagles, Fitzgerald, or Mandelbaum, to be honest. Or Vergil in the Latin, of course. The Aeneid of Virgil, translated by Fitzgerald (4) - I use this translation as my primary source in studying The Aeneid. I also possess and refer to translations by Mandelbaum, Dryden, Humphries, Rhoades, and Dickinson as well as various commentaries. Regrettably, I know of none that translate the original in Latin to English on a line by line basis. |