Vergil: Poet'S Life; Ancient Lives - Hardcover
SKU
9760300256613
ISBN
9780300256611

Vergil: Poet'S Life; Ancient Lives

$26.00
Author
Ruden, Sarah

The Aeneid stands as a towering work of Classical Roman literature and a gripping dramatization of the best and worst of human nature. In the process of creating this epic poem, Vergil (70ā€“19 BCE) became the worldā€™s first media celebrity, a living legend.

But the real Vergil is a shadowy figure; we know that he was born into a modest rural family, that he led a private and solitary life, and that, in spite of poor health and unusual emotional vulnerabilities, he worked tirelessly to achieve exquisite new effects in verse. Vergilā€™s most famous work, the Aeneid, was commissioned by the emperor Augustus, who published the epic despite Vergilā€™s dying wish that it be destroyed.

Sarah Ruden, widely praised for her translation of the Aeneid, uses evidence from Roman life and history alongside Vergilā€™s own writings to make careful deductions to reconstruct his life. Through her intimate knowledge of Vergilā€™s work, she brings to life a poet who was committed to creating something astonishingly new and memorable, even at great personal cost.

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