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The Aeneid (Everyman's Library)
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Manufacturer: Everyman's Library
Author: Virgil
Publisher: Everyman's Library
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Our Price: $15.60
You Save: $ 4.40 ( 22% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Everyman's Library
Author: Virgil
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Average Customer Rating:
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The Aeneid (Everyman's Library) Description
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 873.01
EAN: 9780679413356
ISBN: 0679413359
Label: Everyman's Library
Manufacturer: Everyman's Library
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 526
Publication Date: 1992-06-30
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Product Release Date: 1992-06-30
Studio: Everyman's Library
Dewey Decimal Number: 873.01
EAN: 9780679413356
ISBN: 0679413359
Label: Everyman's Library
Manufacturer: Everyman's Library
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 526
Publication Date: 1992-06-30
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Product Release Date: 1992-06-30
Studio: Everyman's Library
Editorial Review of The Aeneid (Everyman's Library)
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
In dramatic and narrative power, Virgil’s Aeneid is the equal of its great Homeric predecessors, The Iliad and The Odyssey. It surpasses them, however, in the intense sympathy it displays for its human actors–a sympathy that makes events such as Aeneas’s escape from Troy and search for a new homeland, the passion and the death of Dido, the defeat of Turnus, and the founding of Rome among the most memorable in literature.
This celebrated translation by Robert Fitzgerald does full justice to the speed, clarity, and stately grandeur of the Roman Empire’s most magnificent literary work of art.
In dramatic and narrative power, Virgil’s Aeneid is the equal of its great Homeric predecessors, The Iliad and The Odyssey. It surpasses them, however, in the intense sympathy it displays for its human actors–a sympathy that makes events such as Aeneas’s escape from Troy and search for a new homeland, the passion and the death of Dido, the defeat of Turnus, and the founding of Rome among the most memorable in literature.
This celebrated translation by Robert Fitzgerald does full justice to the speed, clarity, and stately grandeur of the Roman Empire’s most magnificent literary work of art.
Customer Reviews of The Aeneid (Everyman's Library)
Customer Rating: 
Review Summary: Everyman's Library (Cloth)
Review: I enjoyed the read but it did not come in cloth as I had ordered, it was Hardcover.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: I sing of a great translation
Review: Roman society was enamoured of Greek culture -- many of the best 'Roman' things were Greek; the major gods were derivative of the Greek pantheon; philosophy, literature, science, political ideals, architecture -- all this was adopted from the Greeks. It makes sense that, at the point of their ascendancy in the world, they would long for an epic history similar to the Homeric legends; the Iliad and the Odyssey, written some 500 years after the actual events they depict, tell of the heroism of the Greeks in their battle against Troy (Ilium). The Aeneid, written by Vergil 700 years after Homer, at the commission of Augustus (himself in the process of consolidating his authority over Rome), turns the heroic victory of the much-admired Greeks on its head by postulating a survivor from Troy, Aeneas, who undergoes as journey akin to the Odyssey, even further afield.
Vergil constructs Aeneas, a very minor character in the Iliad, as the princely survivor and pilgrim from Troy, on a journey through the Mediterranean in search of a new home. According to Fitzgerald, who wrote a brief postscript to the poem, Vergil created a Homeric hero set in a Homeric age, purposefully following the Iliad and Odyssey as if they were formula, in the way that many a Hollywood director follows the formulaic pattern of past successful films. Vergil did not create the Trojan legend of Roman origins, but his poem solidified the notion in popular and scholarly sentiment.
Vergil sets the seeds for future animosity between Carthage and Rome in the Aeneid, too -- the curse of queen Dido on the descendants of Aeneas of never-ending strife played into then-recent recollections of war in the Roman mind. Books I through VI are much more studied than VII through XII, but the whole of the Aeneid is a spectacular tale.
Fitzgerald's modern and accessible translation makes the Aeneid really come to life for modern readers. It is a verse translation, not forced into word-by-word construction nor into false, flowery and stuffy structured verse that would seem formal and distant. This is a language familiar to modern readers, just as Vergil's Latin would have been readily accessible to the listeners and readers of his time.
Vergil died before he could complete the story. He wished it to be burned; fortunately, Augustus had other ideas. Still, there are incomplete lines and thoughts, and occasional conflicts in the storyline that one assumes might have been worked out in the end, had more editing time been available. Despite these, the Aeneid remains a masterpiece, and Fitzgerald's translation will be a standard bearer for some time to come.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Gods Favor the Bold
Review: Virgil's epic tale of Rome's origins are wonderfully recited in Robert Fitzgerald's faithful translation. A great tale on fate, fortune, and courage by one of the greatest Latin writers.
The story follows the travels of the Trojan prince Aeneas who, along with a few other countrymen, are able to flee the sack of Troy by the Greeks. Jupiter is set on making Aeneas and his people great but not before they pass certain trials and tribulations. Prince Aeneas sails to Carthage on his way to Italy and Queen Dido falls madly in love with him. Knowing that his destiny lies elsewhere, Aeneas continues on his voyage and Queen Dido kills herself. Aeneas finally disembarks in the fields of Latium but at first encounters hostile Latin tribes under the rule of King Latinus. After some fighting, the two make a pact and merge as one people setting the stage for the future founding of Rome by Romulus.
This is a great story on par with 'The Iliad' and 'The Odyssey.' It is perhaps even more fictional than the 'Iliad' as Rome was founded more than 400 years after the Trojan War by Romulus in 753 B.C. As Romulus and Remus were the sons of Iuli and so the grandchildren of Aeneas, the latter would have been alive no later than the mid-9th Century B.C. Furthermore, Carthage wasn't founded until about the 9th Century which was 300 years after the fall of Troy. Unless Aeneas lived to a canonic age, it is very unlikely that he or the Trojans had anything to do with the founding of Rome. Such tales of Aeneas and the founding of Rome coincide more closely with the earliest Greek colonial settlements in Sicily, Italy, and southern France in the 9th Century and it is probably from there that the Romans derived this fancy tale as to their origins. The perpetuation of such tales probably had political reasons in either supporting political union with the Greek colonial city-states or an extended political/military campaign against them. In any case, Fitzgerald's background in poetry brings the story to life and makes it a pleasant reading experience: it's a great buy.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A worthwhile purchase
Review: I am currently in the process of re-reading this translation of Vergil's Aeneid. When I first read it, I had much less experience in Latin than I now have. Thus, the language seemed cumbersome to me, and the story was simply a rather uninteresting spin-off of Homer's classics.
For my senior year of hich scool, I studied the original Latin of the Aeneid, and have come to a greater appreciation for the poetic beauty and complexity which is wrought throughout the work. Occasionally I resorted to Fitsgerald's translation to see exactly how my rendering compares with his, and this is where I feel the books few weaknesses became transparent.
Fitzgerald's translation is a noble contribution to English verse in its own right. His variety of word choice and understnading of the original texts makes this translation one of the best. However, for someone like myself, who wants to compare translations, the lines of the book are numbered accoriding to how Fitsgerald has translated them. For example, the first page shows 26 lines, while covering only the first 16 lines of the first book. This can be annoying, but it is truly minor if one is reading Vergil for pleasure.
The other weakness (and this can hardly be considered one) relates to Fitxgerald's translational style as a whole. For those of you who are Bible translation-buffs, I think that Fitzgerald captures Vergil's original meaning as well as the NLT (New Living Translation) retains the sense of the Biblical texts. This is not an indictment of the NLT, but merely a comparison. And like the NLT, this translation has its rightful place on the shelf of any serious Latin scholar. However, for those of us who are more literal-minded, a more literal transation may be better.
On the whole, a great book.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: An excellent version of this classic epic
Review: What can be said about this classic masterpiece in epic poetry? Virgil clearly emanated the Homeric style of epic, and his debt to Homer is very apparent in this work. Still, it retains a style and flavor all its own. The poem tells the story of Aeneas, the Trojan hero from the Iliad who survived to found the Roman race in Italy. The first half of the poem are his adventures in reaching Italy (comparable to the Odyssey), and the second half deal with the war that results from his landing there (comparable to the Iliad).
Review Summary: Everyman's Library (Cloth)
Review: I enjoyed the read but it did not come in cloth as I had ordered, it was Hardcover.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: I sing of a great translation
Review: Roman society was enamoured of Greek culture -- many of the best 'Roman' things were Greek; the major gods were derivative of the Greek pantheon; philosophy, literature, science, political ideals, architecture -- all this was adopted from the Greeks. It makes sense that, at the point of their ascendancy in the world, they would long for an epic history similar to the Homeric legends; the Iliad and the Odyssey, written some 500 years after the actual events they depict, tell of the heroism of the Greeks in their battle against Troy (Ilium). The Aeneid, written by Vergil 700 years after Homer, at the commission of Augustus (himself in the process of consolidating his authority over Rome), turns the heroic victory of the much-admired Greeks on its head by postulating a survivor from Troy, Aeneas, who undergoes as journey akin to the Odyssey, even further afield.
Vergil constructs Aeneas, a very minor character in the Iliad, as the princely survivor and pilgrim from Troy, on a journey through the Mediterranean in search of a new home. According to Fitzgerald, who wrote a brief postscript to the poem, Vergil created a Homeric hero set in a Homeric age, purposefully following the Iliad and Odyssey as if they were formula, in the way that many a Hollywood director follows the formulaic pattern of past successful films. Vergil did not create the Trojan legend of Roman origins, but his poem solidified the notion in popular and scholarly sentiment.
Vergil sets the seeds for future animosity between Carthage and Rome in the Aeneid, too -- the curse of queen Dido on the descendants of Aeneas of never-ending strife played into then-recent recollections of war in the Roman mind. Books I through VI are much more studied than VII through XII, but the whole of the Aeneid is a spectacular tale.
Fitzgerald's modern and accessible translation makes the Aeneid really come to life for modern readers. It is a verse translation, not forced into word-by-word construction nor into false, flowery and stuffy structured verse that would seem formal and distant. This is a language familiar to modern readers, just as Vergil's Latin would have been readily accessible to the listeners and readers of his time.
Vergil died before he could complete the story. He wished it to be burned; fortunately, Augustus had other ideas. Still, there are incomplete lines and thoughts, and occasional conflicts in the storyline that one assumes might have been worked out in the end, had more editing time been available. Despite these, the Aeneid remains a masterpiece, and Fitzgerald's translation will be a standard bearer for some time to come.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Gods Favor the Bold
Review: Virgil's epic tale of Rome's origins are wonderfully recited in Robert Fitzgerald's faithful translation. A great tale on fate, fortune, and courage by one of the greatest Latin writers.
The story follows the travels of the Trojan prince Aeneas who, along with a few other countrymen, are able to flee the sack of Troy by the Greeks. Jupiter is set on making Aeneas and his people great but not before they pass certain trials and tribulations. Prince Aeneas sails to Carthage on his way to Italy and Queen Dido falls madly in love with him. Knowing that his destiny lies elsewhere, Aeneas continues on his voyage and Queen Dido kills herself. Aeneas finally disembarks in the fields of Latium but at first encounters hostile Latin tribes under the rule of King Latinus. After some fighting, the two make a pact and merge as one people setting the stage for the future founding of Rome by Romulus.
This is a great story on par with 'The Iliad' and 'The Odyssey.' It is perhaps even more fictional than the 'Iliad' as Rome was founded more than 400 years after the Trojan War by Romulus in 753 B.C. As Romulus and Remus were the sons of Iuli and so the grandchildren of Aeneas, the latter would have been alive no later than the mid-9th Century B.C. Furthermore, Carthage wasn't founded until about the 9th Century which was 300 years after the fall of Troy. Unless Aeneas lived to a canonic age, it is very unlikely that he or the Trojans had anything to do with the founding of Rome. Such tales of Aeneas and the founding of Rome coincide more closely with the earliest Greek colonial settlements in Sicily, Italy, and southern France in the 9th Century and it is probably from there that the Romans derived this fancy tale as to their origins. The perpetuation of such tales probably had political reasons in either supporting political union with the Greek colonial city-states or an extended political/military campaign against them. In any case, Fitzgerald's background in poetry brings the story to life and makes it a pleasant reading experience: it's a great buy.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A worthwhile purchase
Review: I am currently in the process of re-reading this translation of Vergil's Aeneid. When I first read it, I had much less experience in Latin than I now have. Thus, the language seemed cumbersome to me, and the story was simply a rather uninteresting spin-off of Homer's classics.
For my senior year of hich scool, I studied the original Latin of the Aeneid, and have come to a greater appreciation for the poetic beauty and complexity which is wrought throughout the work. Occasionally I resorted to Fitsgerald's translation to see exactly how my rendering compares with his, and this is where I feel the books few weaknesses became transparent.
Fitzgerald's translation is a noble contribution to English verse in its own right. His variety of word choice and understnading of the original texts makes this translation one of the best. However, for someone like myself, who wants to compare translations, the lines of the book are numbered accoriding to how Fitsgerald has translated them. For example, the first page shows 26 lines, while covering only the first 16 lines of the first book. This can be annoying, but it is truly minor if one is reading Vergil for pleasure.
The other weakness (and this can hardly be considered one) relates to Fitxgerald's translational style as a whole. For those of you who are Bible translation-buffs, I think that Fitzgerald captures Vergil's original meaning as well as the NLT (New Living Translation) retains the sense of the Biblical texts. This is not an indictment of the NLT, but merely a comparison. And like the NLT, this translation has its rightful place on the shelf of any serious Latin scholar. However, for those of us who are more literal-minded, a more literal transation may be better.
On the whole, a great book.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: An excellent version of this classic epic
Review: What can be said about this classic masterpiece in epic poetry? Virgil clearly emanated the Homeric style of epic, and his debt to Homer is very apparent in this work. Still, it retains a style and flavor all its own. The poem tells the story of Aeneas, the Trojan hero from the Iliad who survived to found the Roman race in Italy. The first half of the poem are his adventures in reaching Italy (comparable to the Odyssey), and the second half deal with the war that results from his landing there (comparable to the Iliad).
It is said that Virgil wrote this poem at least partially in hopes of fostering the national sentiment of the Romans, of making them proud of their heritage, and of uniting them in a common ancestry. His motives are very clear--there are a number of references to the future glory of Rome, and various visions of the leaders and generals who would bring Rome her greatest glory. Interestingly, this poem was never completed, and Virgil, on his deathbed, asked that it be destroyed. It was preserved, however, by Augustus, and so we have it in its mostly finished form today.
This translation by Fitzgerald is excellent. Like his translations of Homer, Fitzgerald's Aeneid flows very smoothly, and stays true to the feel of the original. Also, there is a postscript in the back detailing both the history of the times, and various events in Virgil's life. This postscript is very helpful in understanding the world in which the poet lived.
There is also a glossary of names in the back, very useful for keeping all the people, places, and deity straight. The Everyman's binding is a great way to go at an affordable price. All in all, this version of The Aenied is very satisfying. I highly recommend it.