Review: The Aeneid
I did read the Aeneid. Obviously there’s a huge body of criticism and annotation that I’m not going to be able to add anything to. But for the record, I found it interesting as both a narrative and as a telling of a national creation myth.
I wouldn’t call it completely rip-roaring as a narrative for the modern reader. It is epic poetry about people who lived a couple thousand years ago and while many of their emotions are ours, there are many concerns that are not. And beyond that, these are embodiments of national virtues and outright Gods. Not completely relatable.
Yet I enjoyed a lot of it. I didn’t realize that this was a primary source of the Trojan Horse story. It remains an unbelievable narrative, but the story of the sacking of Troy was more affecting than I was expecting. Telling the story of early Rome as a prophesy embossed on Aeneas’s shield was new to me also. It’s a transparent way to teach some Roman history, but still interesting.
That’s mostly just me rambling. It’s the Aeneid. If you are curious about this time period or classic epics at all, it’s kind of a must.
Recommended.