The Aeneid

By Virgil

Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.

Virgil's sweeping epic of Trojan warrior Aeneas and the founding of Rome—a stirring tale of exile, heroism, and combat, and of a man caught between love, duty, and fate.

This edition includes:
-A concise introduction that gives the reader important background information
-A chronology of the author's life and work
-A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context
-An outline of key themes and plot points to guide the reader's own interpretations
-Detailed explanatory notes
-Critical analysis and modern perspectives on the work
-Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
-A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Jan 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781451685466

Virgil

Virgil (70 BC-19 BC) was a Roman poet. He was born near Mantua in northern Italy. Educated in rhetoric, medicine, astronomy, and philosophy, Virgil moved to Rome where he was known as a particularly shy member of Catullus’ literary circle. Suffering from poor health for most of his life, Virgil began his career as a poet while studying Epicureanism in Naples. Around 38 BC, he published the Eclogues, a series of pastoral poems in the style of Hellenistic poet Theocritus. In 29 BC, Virgil published his next work, the Georgics, a long didactic poem on farming in the tradition of Hesiod’s Works and Days. In the last decade of his life, Virgil worked on his masterpiece the Aeneid, an epic poem commissioned by Emperor Augustus. Expanding upon the story of the Trojan War as explored in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Aeneid follows the hero Aeneas from the destruction of Troy to the discovery of the region that would later become Rome. Posthumously considered Rome’s national poet, Virgil’s reputation has grown through the centuries—in large part for his formative influence on Dante’s Divine Comedy—to secure his position as a foundational figure for all of Western literature.

Book preview

THE AENEID

Book I

The Argument

THE TROJANS, after a seven years’ voyage, set sail for Italy, but are overtaken by a dreadful storm, which Aeolus raises at Juno’s request. The tempest sinks one ship, and scatters the rest. Neptune drives off the winds, and calms the sea. Aeneas, with his own ship and six more, arrives safe at an African port. Venus complains to Jupiter of her son’s misfortunes. Jupiter comforts her, and sends Mercury to procure him a kind reception among the Carthaginians. Aeneas, going out to discover the country, meets his mother in the shape of a huntress, who conveys him in a cloud to Carthage, where he sees his friends whom he thought lost, and receives a kind entertainment from the queen. Dido, by a device of Venus, begins to have a passion for him, and after some discourse with him, desires the history of his adventures since the siege of Troy, which is the subject of the two following books.

Reviews for The Aeneid

[william9kirkland · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Damn! Who is the translator?! There are well over 50, each one different than the other. Without knowing who, we don't know what we have read!