The Aeneid @ richardeward.com

The Aeneid
by Virgil
from Vintage

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

• Beautiful translation of a Classic
  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... more info

• aweful translation, but not quite as bad as Fagles
  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... more info

• What kind of a dope...
  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
  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.

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