Book Review: The Aeneid
I didn't think I'd enjoy this or, at the very least, read this as quickly as I did. I was surprised at myself, or maybe I shouldn't - Virgil’s The Aeneid is an epic piece of literature and is considered a classic for a reason. I also appreciate an engaging translation of a work, and David West has, in my opinion, done a stellar job. And if you know me and have read any of my previous reviews that dealt with translated books and plays, you'll know I'm intrinsically suspicious. But I digress, this was great and probably one of the better classics that I have read this year. Pity it had to come halfway through the year.
Aeneas’s world has been burnt to ash, as part of a handful of survivors from the fall of Troy escape with the help of Aeneas’s mother, the goddess Venus. Unfortunately, on their journey, they have to deal with the unwavering wrath of Juno, which kills a lot of Aeneas’s fellow survivors. Aeneas’s journey endures a love affair with Dido, Queen of Carthage, which ends in tragedy, a battle with a Cyclops and war to claim his fated new homeland of Latium. The ancients had it rough.
This book was engaging from the start as we begin in Carthage, where Aeneas and his fellow survivors have washed up. While we may have lost the original rhythm and meter of this poem, as I'm reading it in English. It does not mean the tale is any less thrilling. The imagery is vivid, filled with dread as the Trojians discover the fateful horse, ignoring Cassandra's warning that the Greeks will slay them all. To the fighting and the images of flames shattering the hope and lives of the people within the city walls. I think my favourite books were the retelling of the ‘Fall of Troy’, ’Dido’, and ‘The Underworld’; they were action-packed, but also devastating books to read. I didn't think I'd be crying my eyes out to this book. But I did. A lot. I am not embarrassed by that. The imagery was vivid - I particularly enjoyed Virgil’s imagining of the underworld and the different understanding of sin and peace. Aeneas’s guide was a nymph of the oracle of Apollo - I can see where Dante got his inspiration for the levels of hell from.
What I liked about this book is how it is structured: books 1-6 look at the fraught journey to Italy, the storms, the loss, heartbreak and tragedy, whilst books 7-12 are war, displays of might, overcoming adversity and fulfilling one’s destiny. Now I do understand that the structures of Greek and Roman poems are typically epic - this poem in particular was to heap praise and legitimise the Julio-Claudian dynasty. I didn't care too much for the epic battle sequences at the end, nor for the heroic tournaments that Aenaes put on for his people and troops; a thinly veiled proclamation attesting to the might of Octavian. I was a bit unimpressed by that. But the games themselves seemed fun… I guess?
All in all, I really like this and would probably read books 1-6 again as they were my favourites of all of them. Is this a piece of political propaganda - in a way, yes. But then again, if it wasn't, would this magnificent piece of literature exist?