Basic Virgil Paperbacks Aeneid
The Aeneid of Virgil
Tr. Allen Mandelbaum
1971. Reprinted by Bantam Classics, 1995. 402pp.
ISBN 0553210416.

You always remember your first time. This translation of the Aeneid was it for me. By the time I graduated from college, my first copy was getting pretty worn, so I thought I better get another copy (it was cheap then) before it went out of print. Fortunately that hasn't happened yet. A good thing, that, because in my opinion, it's still the best translation out there: readable--even beautiful--as English poetry, but still accurate. (Did I mention that it won a National Book Award when it came out in 1971?) And it's still dirt cheap. Excellent glossary, too.

There are, of course, alternatives: Robert Fitzgerald's translation is (like his award-winning Odyssey translation) impressionistic but powerful, and has numerous fans on both sides of the Atlantic. The C. Day Lewis translation has a great following in England, for reasons which I have never been able to grasp, but which have to do (I suspect) with the fact that Mandelbaum's translation is all but unknown in that country. Click here to order.

Oxford Readings in Vergil's 'Aeneid'
A good complement to the collection of specially-commissioned essays in the new Cambridge Companion to Virgil edited by Charles Martindale.
Oxford Readings in Vergil's Aeneid
Ed. S. J. Harrison
Oxford University Press, 1990. 477pp.
ISBN 0198143885

This collection of essays provides in convenient form a number of recent and classic papers on Vergil's Aeneid, covering a wide range of topics. It is intended to be a supplement to standard reading for undergraduate courses in ancient epic poetry, and Vergil in particular. Especial attention has been paid to including useful essays from sources which are rare, out of print, or otherwise difficult to obtain, although care has also been taken to include material which is regularly specified on reading lists.

The essays presented here are all in English, but Dr. Harrison has attempted to maintain a broad overview of twentieth-century Vergilian criticism; work in other languages is mentioned in his introduction, which is a general survey of literature on the Aeneid since 1900 and contains much additional material. Click here to order.

Contents: S. J. Harrison, "Some Views of the Aeneid in the Twentieth Century"; R. D. Williams, "The Purpose of the Aeneid"; R. D. Williams, "The Pictures on Dido's Temple (Aeneid 1.450-93)"; E. L. Harrison, "Divine Action in Aeneid Book 2"; G. P. Goold, "Servius and the Helen Episode"; N. M. Horsfall, "Dido in the Light of History"; Niall Rudd, "Dido's Culpa"; D. C. Feeney, "The Taciturnity of Aeneas"; R. D. Williams, "The Sixth Book of the Aeneid"; Friedrich Solmsen, "The World of the Dead in Book 6 of the Aeneid"; D. A. West, "The Bough and the Gate"; W. S. Anderson, "Vergil's Second Iliad"; Eduard Fraenkel, "Some Aspects of the Structure of Aeneid 7"; G. K. Galinsky, "Hercules in the Aeneid; D. A. West, "Cernere erat: The Shield of Aeneas"; N. M. Horsfall, "Numanus Remulus: Ethnography and Propaganda in Aeneid 9.598ff."; R. O. A. M. Lyne, "Vergil and the Politics of War"; D. C. Feeney, "The Reconciliations of Juno"; C. M. Bowra, "Aeneas and the Stoic Ideal"; R. G. M. Nisbet, "Aeneas Imperator: Roman Generalship in an Epic Context"; G. N. Knauer, "Vergil's Aeneid and Homer"; L. P. Wilkinson, "The Language of Virgil and Horace"; D. A. West, "Multiple-Correspondence Similes in the Aeneid"; E. L. Harrison, "Cleverness in Virgilian Imitation"; F. H. Sandbach, "Anti-Antiquarianism in the Aeneid"; N. M. Horsfall, "Virgil and the Conquest of Chaos."

Virgil's Aeneid: Interpretation and Influence
Virgil's Aeneid: Interpretation and Influence
Michael C. J. Putnam
University of North Carolina Press, 1995. 332pp.
ISBN 0807844993

"Taken singly, Putnam's readings are always sensitive and scholarly, and they carry conviction. Grouped together, they build an uncommonly passionate, yet also uncommonly lucid and coherent, argument about Aeneas's killing of Turnus and the triumph of furor at the end of Aeneid 12." - Kenneth J. Reckford, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

I seldom agree with Professor Putnam's conclusions, but he does offer a coherent alternative to the more conservate viewpoint represented by most of the articles in the Oxford Readings volume. He also writes very, very well. Click here to order.

Contents: Introduction; The Virgilian Achievement; Possessiveness, Sexuality, and Heroism in the Aeneid; The Third Book of the Aeneid: From Homer to Rome; Daedalus, Virgil, and the End of Art; Aeneid 7 and the Aeneid; Umbro, Nireus, and Love's Threnody; Pius Aeneas and the Metamorphosis of Lausus; Anger, Blindness, and Insight in Virgil's Aeneid; Wrathful Aeneas and the Tactics of Pietas in Virgil, Ovid, and Lucan; Virgil's Tragic Future: Senecan Drama and the Aeneid; Virgil's Inferno; bibliography; index of passages cited; general index.

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