It is a great pleasure to welcome two classicists from Rice University, Scott McGill and Susanna Wright, who have achieved a new translation of The Aeneid by the Roman poet Virgil, with an introduction by Professor
.It is transformative for me, because they’ve rendered in English and iambic pentameter a story that’s a whopper.
The story derives, in many instances, not only from the needs of Rome in the first century BCE—that’s where all the trouble was, the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Empire—but it also touches on the tradition that Rome had always a chip on the shoulder about: the Greeks, especially Homer.
Where Virgil was born turns out to be a factor. Where was he born? What did it mean at the time of his birth? I believe the year was 70 BCE.
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LINKS:
The Aeneid, translated by Scott McGill and Susannah Wright on Amazon
The John Batchelor Show on Apple Podcasts:
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