The Aeneid | Virgil | Beautiful translation of a Classic

The Aeneid | Virgil | What kind of a dope...

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The Aeneid

	The Aeneid Virgil Vintage, 1990 - 442 pages average customer review:based on 55 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Virgil's great epic transforms the Homeric tradition into a triumphal statement of the Roman civilizing mission. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald.

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 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.

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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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