Virgil And The
Aeneid
His Latin name is Publius
Virgilius Maro “Virgil” was born October 15, 70 B.C.E in Andes, Italy.
He was a famous poet and wrote several poems in his life.
Rome considered Virgil the greatest poet of all time, and he battled
problems along the way. Some complications were living thru a civil war, accused
of stealing Homer’s work and translating the
Aeneid to different languages.
First, Virgil was educated in
Epicurean philosophy and Stoicism at Cremona. When he was 20 years old, the
civil war between Marius and Sulla was at hand (Williams 1). Virgil never joined
the military or became a politician. Instead, he devoted his life to poetry and
his studies connected with it.
Next, Virgil wrote several poems
in his literary career. The Romans agree that
Aeneid is the best nationally known
poem. His earliest work, the Eclogues,
was a collection of 10 poems wrote between 42 & 37 B.C.E.
The poems reflected on Virgil’s own life and the loss of his family’s
farm after the Battle of Phillipi in 42 B.C.E.
Another poem was Georgics wrote
between the end of the civil wars 37 & 30 B.C.E. The poem spoke out for the
farms in Italy to be restored and live a traditional life. Then the infamous
poem Aeneid was in planning for 11
years and finally needed a setting from Greece.
While Virgil was in Greece he caught a fever and died September 21, 19
B.C.E.
Aeneid tells a story about a Trojan soldier, his wife, and little
Lulas, running and dodging Greek spears (Howard B8).
His final words wished for the poem
Aeneid to be burned. Augustus denied the wish because the poem was a
monument for the achievements and goals of the Augustan Age of Rome.
Finally, according to Richard
Garner in “Virgil up to speed”, Virgil
translated and reworked phrases from The
Iliad and the Odyssey on such a
large scale that he was criticized of stealing from Homer.
Then, translating Aeneid into English posed a fearsome task. Although, there have been
three English versions published in the past 35 years by Mandelbaum in 1981,
Fitzgerald in 1983 and most recently, Fagles in 2006 (Garner 85).
In conclusion, Virgil’s
influence on literature was gigantic!
Instead of fighting in the war he transcended in his writings and lived
through his literature. If Virgil would not have voiced his views on paper then
Rome would not have been the same.