Customer Reviews

Vergil's Aeneid (Latin Edition)

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I used this book nearly 20 years ago in a class devoted to studying and translating the Aeneid; looking at the copyright page, I can see that the first copyright on the book was back in 1930. Clyde Pharr produced a far-reaching book, for it to remain in effective, useful life for such a long term. Reprinted now by the Bolchazy-Carducci Press (the press responsible for such fun books as 'Cat in the Hat' and 'Green Eggs and Ham' in Latin), it remains one of the better books for students, classroom and independent study types, to use to learn Latin and study the Aeneid.

Each page consists of anywhere from five to twenty lines of text from Vergil's Aeneid. The rest of the page is devoted to reader notes. These are in two sections -- first, a secondary vocabulary list taken from the lines above; the bottom section are generous notes, which give unique vocabulary, grammar points, special usage notes, history and more. The text is printed with most general vocabulary printed in standard font face (these are words that occur frequently), and can be found on the General Word List in the back. Other words appear in italics, and are found in the list in the middle of the page. At the end of the book, there are lists of words broken into frequency -- the General Word List contains all words occuring 24 times or more in the six books; two other lists have the words which occur 12-23 time and 6-11 times, respectively. The amount of memorisation for vocabulary versus looking up words in the notes can then be regulated by the student or teacher.

There is a grammatical appendix at the end, with 477 separate items of concern. Much of this is review from prior Latin grammars the student is supposed to have learned; a companion Latin grammar is also recommended by Pharr (there are several from which to choose). The appendix follows different pagination, and even has its own index.

The Aeneid is a fascinating text, one of the greatest epics of the ancient world; it takes up the task of the Iliad/Odyssey cycle and 'updates', if you will, the story line into the Roman era. Pharr's book helps the reader to work with it in its original language, easily and methodically, with only a minimum of Latin training (one year is probably sufficient) required for engagement.

I took (by choice) four years of Latin in high school and have continued to play intermittently with the language since then. Of all the various texts and readers that I've seen over the years, Pharr's edition of "The Aeneid" is by far the best. Why? Because its structure removes much of the tedious burden of looking up vocabulary in the dictionary and allows the reader to focus on the way the language is used and to appreciate the literary aspects of the Virgil's work. Having the vocabulary for each page on the bottom of that page along with the standard grammatical notes was a stroke of genius. This page vocabulary is suppplemented by a bare-bones pull-out sheet of common words and a full grammar as an appendix, so everything the student-reader needs is right there and readily accessible.

My sole complaint is that this volume includes only Books 1-6. Even though Books 7-12 are generally considered less interesting than 1-6, they deserve a similar treatment as well. Barbara Boyd's Pharr-like treatment of selected scenes from 7-12 is just not enough for die-hard Virgil addicts.

I've seen relatively little comparable to Pharr for other Latin classics, but I'd love to find editions like this for Ovid, Livy, Cicero, or Horace. Pharr's approach is the most sensible I've found for instilling a sense of love for the Latin language in its students. If my high school teacher hadn't used Pharr's edition of Virgil all those years ago, I suspect my love for the Latin language would be a distant memory by now. Thanks to Pharr, Latin may have killed off all the Romans, but it didn't succeed in killing me.

Just this year, we began using this textbook in our Latin class. I have found that it has made an immense difference in the class's ability to translate and understand the rhetorical devices used. They no longer struggle with the vocabulary: it is presented on the same page as the text! The notes that accompany each page are extensive and very enlightening. I VERY rarely disagree with them (with our previous textbook, I didn't agree with many of the choices they made). The grammatical appendix is outstanding. One caution for teachers using this as a classroom textbook: your students may begin to use the vocabulary lists as a crutch, never actually learning the words. Otherwise, I would very strongly recommend this book for anyone who desires to read this masterpiece in its original form, for a class or otherwise. To Clyde Pharr, I say "Optime!"

I am absolutely in awe of this masterpiece, and this book makes it so much easier to understand. I feel as if my many years of studying latin have finally paid off. I recommend this version to anyone interested in reading the Aeneid. It is extremely well organized, and the vocabulary and comments after a few lines of the latin make it an excellent and well organized book.

Being the "Latin Specialist" (what my classmates at school call me) at Catholic Central, I prefer to read Roman classics in the original Latin. This is what I have been looking for. Unfortunately, this edition features only the first six books of THE AENEID. However, it is wonderfully done. Each page features prehaps 20 lines of Latin, the vocabulary for that page, and explanation on difficult or strange grammar. There is also an EXTENSIVE review of grammar in the back. Also features a history of THE AENEID and Vergil. There are several word lists in the back, organized by the number of times the word appears in the first six books (a lot, often, one or twice). I recommend this to you if your taking AP Latin: Vergil or are looking for a Latin text of THE AENEID. Highly recommended!

What a wonderful introduction to Latin poetry this work is. The fold-out vocabulary sheet and on-the-page vocabulary lists (referenced by non-italicizing the text) faciliate translation for beginning Latin scholars who must plod through the 1800 lines or so for the AP exam. The notes are copious and provide a much needed introduction to general features of Latin poetry. This text should not however, be used at the college level when trying to gain greater self-sufficiency at reading Latin.

This book is the pinnacle of Aeneid translators. I used this in AP latin during high school and have recently purchased my own copy to start it up again. The footnotes and appendices are invaluable resources in their helpfulness and explanation of Vergil's poetry and scansion for those not familiar with dactyllic hexameter. The word list in the back is very helpful as well but a latin dictionary is a must since some derivatives of words are hard to translate (not a negative for this book, just a warning). Highly recommended by everyone with whom I've spoken who know of the Aeneid.

A reviewer of the paperback version mentioned that he wished he had gotten the hardcover version the first time, because you cannot make the paperback version open flat so that you can read it while translating and writing. The hardcover edition is excellent in this respect.

As other reviewers have mentioned for both editions, this is a superb Latin version of the Aeneid with excellent vocabulary helps on each page. It is standard for AP Latin classes these days, and I don't know of any serious competition for it in that respect.