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I've begun reading the masterful new translation of Virgil's Aeneid by the same incredible poet and scholar who gave us a new Iliad in 1990 and a vibrant Odyssey in 1996: Robert Fagles.
My previous two attempts to enjoy this Roman epic, in the Mendalbaum and Fitzgerald versions, were sterile... I was not moved at all by the genuflecting "heroism" of Aeneas. But Fagles has breathed energy and relevance into this epic of empire-building... I'm midway through book four, and I just wanted to really recommend the translation to everyone. I'll periodically post my impressions of what I read in this thread.
Posts: 5663 | Registered: Jun 2000
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Thanks for the recommendation, David. I've read the Aenid a couple of times (Fitzgerald both times), and I agree that it's always felt sterile. I'll give Fagles' translation a try.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I've read parts of both the Mandelbaum and the Fagles translations, but haven't had time to read all of The Aeneid yet, in any translation (a travesty, I know). From what I recall, I really enjoyed reading the Fagles, but for school purposes I thought the footnoting was better/more convenient in the Mandelbaum. That might have just been the edition I had of the former, though; I'm not sure, since it was almost a year ago.
Eventually, I'd like to read all of both translations.
Posts: 952 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Are you sure you mean Fagles, and not Fitzgerald? Fagles just published his, that's why I ask.
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I'll give it a try. I've never liked any published translation of the Aeneid I've ever read (though I did find a very accurate one on the web). It'd be nice to have an English copy so I don't have to wade through it myself.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Hmm...it's possible, and highly probable. I know the translator's name began with 'F', so it probably was Fitzgerald. I know I read part of a Fagles translation for that class, but I was looking at bits of the Iliad and Odyssey too, as well as The Divine Comedy (all in various translations), so there's a good possibility that I'm getting things mixed up. Whoops. Carry on.
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I never finished the Aeneid. I found it dreadfully dull, after the Iliad and Odyssey (and I made lists of ships for fun out of the Iliad, so that's saying something). This made things a bit tricky for my Epic finals, but I managed somehow. I wonder what translation it was. Do you know, EL? Did you take that class? I took it with Faber, and it was a shiny, plain-covered sort of book with VIRGIL in big letters, if I recall.
Posts: 624 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Am I the only one here who read this as Fraggle Rock does the Aenied? (SPOILER****in which Dido Fraggle does not kill herself after Aenid Fraggle leaves. She breaks out into a really cool bluesy number.)
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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No, I had the fortune (for good or ill) to take Faber's Virgil class. All Virgil, all the time. We translated four of the books, I think. (Maybe it was three?) So we got it straight from the horse's mouth - I think that was better, because some of what makes the poem so brilliant just can't be translated, and Faber was his usual fangirl self.
But yeah, I never took Epic.
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