The Aeneid: A New Translation Paperback – 1 Sept. 2022

This is a review of The Aeneid: A New Translation Hardcover – 5 Nov. 2020by Vergil (Author), Shadi Bartsch (Translator)Firstly, I have to admit to being totally unqualified to write a review of this, or any other, book. I have no academic qualifications whatsoever. It is just that I am simply stunned by it.For fully 3% of those two millennia, since a schoolboy, I have been struggling, with pitifully little success, to get into classical poetry/literature/history, (in translation, of course). Suddenly, without warning, I am presented with the open door offered by this book.The introduction and translator's note alone are worth ten times the asking price. I will not attempt, because it is beyond my poor capacity, to summarise the poem. This can be readily obtained from the internet.It is the utterly startling freshness and readability, and the "modernity" (if that is any recommendation) of the hero/anti-hero Aeneas which is so surprising. A displaced person, a refugee from seemingly endless middle-eastern conflict, he is literally blown hither and thither by fate and the wrath of the gods, or at least one. Aeneas emerges as the ultimate hero, and a thorough-going cad.Is this a comment on the the very concept of heroism?Is this an endorsement, a justification, of Octavian/Augustus, or a condemnation, or both? I will leave the reader to make up his or her own mind.The point is, this has to be the best translation, of one of the pinnacles of world literature, ever written. And above all it is a joy to read. It is fresher that tomorrow's news, and possibly it will prove startling similar, though at this distance in time, reassuringly safer.Please, for your own sake, don't miss the opportunity of buying this book, simply because of this very inadequate "review".

Interesting read

The text is pretty good though some lines lack a little punch (Juno raising Acheron is fine, but translation should make that more obvious - West has raising hell).The kindle edition is awful though. Endnotes can and do work in Kindle, but the notes in this are not hyperlinked so you can't read them.

Shadi is a dream. Adore this!!