The Aeneid - Hardcover

Virgil

3.86

130,092 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0192832069 ISBN 13: 9780192832061

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2007

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Extract One: Book 5, from line 362 (MP3 format, 8:17, 15 MB)
Extract Two: Book 6, from line 268 (MP3 format, 4:41, 8.5 MB)

"Arms and the man I sing." So begins one of the greatest works of literature in any language. Written more than two thousand years ago, The Aeneid tells the story of Aeneas' seven-year journey from the ruins of Troy to Italy, where he becomes the founding ancestor of Rome. Virgil's supreme achievement is not only to reveal Rome's imperial future, but to invest it with both passion and suffering for all those caught up in the fates of others.
Frederick Ahl's new translation captures the excitement, poetic energy, and intellectual force of the original in a way that has never been done before. Ahl has used a version of Virgil's ancient hexameter, a swift-moving six-beat line varying between twelve and seventeen syllables, to reproduce the original poetry in a thrillingly accurate and engaging style. This is an Aeneid that the first-time reader can grasp and enjoy, and whose rendition of Virgil's subtleties of thought and language will enthrall those already familiar with the epic. Unlike most translators, Ahl has chosen to retain Virgil's word-play, the puns and anagrams and other instances of the poet's ebullient wit. "To shear away Virgil's luxuriance," Ahl writes, "is not to separate the painting from a (superfluous) gilded frame, but to lacerate the canvas. Like Shakespeare and the Greek tragedians, Virgil grasped that humor and earnestness are not mutually exclusive in art any more than they are in life. One should read the Aeneid not in solemn homage, but for enjoyment."
Enhanced by Elaine Fantham's Introduction, Ahl's comprehensive notes, and an invaluable indexed glossary, this lively new translation brings readers closer to the original and the myriad enjoyments to be found there.

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About the Author:

Frederick Ahl is a professor of classics and comparative literature at Cornell University. His books include Sophocles' Oedipus, Seneca's Phaedra, Lucan: An Introduction, and Metaformations: Soundplay and Wordplay in Ovid and Other Classical Poets. He lives in Ithaca, NY.

Review:

"Frederick Ahl captures the pathos..to splendid effect. His version reproduces the fierce, hurtling momentum of the original...he is acutely sensitive to the intricate texture of Virgil's Latin. No pun or anagram or play on words escapes his attention; the subtlety as well as the stateliness of the original shines through in every line. In maintaining this difficult balance, Mr. Ahl has produced the finest translation of the Aeneid in recent memory." --New York Sun

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