Customer Reviews

Virgil: Aeneid VII & VIII (Bristol Latin Texts Series) (Bks.7-8)

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This is a review of C.J. Fordyce's commentary on books 7 and 8 of the Aeneid published by the Bristol Classical Press. Unlike many of the commentaries reproduced by BCP, this is not a reprint of a "schoolboy" edition for the use of second or third year students of Latin. Rather, this text is one of the completed portions of an in-depth scholarly commentary on the entire Aeneid by R.G. Austin and C.J. Fordyce that was to be published by Oxford University Press. The deaths of both commentators in 1974 forced this project to be abandoned, and only Fordyce's commentary on books 7 and 8 and Austin's commentaries on books 1,2,4, and 6 were ever published. So, if you are looking for a commentary to help with grammar, syntax, and general reading comprehension, the BCP commentary on books 7-12 by R.D. Williams would be a more helpful choice than Fordyce's edition.

The BCP edition consists of a very informative general introduction to books 7 and 8 written by P.G. Walsh, a reprinting of Mynors's OCT text of books 7 and 8 (including the apparatus criticus), and about 240 pages of commentary in fairly small print along with indexes and a brief appendix on alliteration. The commentary offers limited help with rare words and difficult syntax, but its purpose really is to plumb the depths of what one can say about the overarching themes and obscure minutiae of these two books. Proper names are investigated thoroughly, intertextual connections to other poets like Ennius, Catullus, Lucretius, and Homer are demonstrated, verbal echoes of other passages and lines in the Aeneid or in Virgil's other works are duly noted, poetic figures and metrical effects are identified and discussed, and the mythology, genealogy, history, and religious cult practices and beliefs informing Virgil's construction of the world of his poem are elucidated and laid out in striking and rigorous detail.

On the whole, Fordyce's commentary paints a more complete picture of how books 7 and 8 work as individual units and as part of a larger whole than does any other commentary in English on these books that I am aware of. One would even be hard pressed to find commentaries on a scope and scale as this one for any of the Aeneid's other books. For this reason, any serious student of Virgil and the Aeneid would do well to invest in a copy of this edition. The comments are written in an engaging and vigorous style, and although I find other parts of the Aeneid to be more beautiful and entertaining, I have never had a more intellectually stimulating experience of reading the Aeneid than when I was using this commentary to do so.

This textbook has no vocabulary section! It primarily contains commentary. Now I have to purchase another book.