Customer Reviews

Virgil's Aeneid: A Reader's Guide

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David Ross's book was suggested to me by one of my professors in whom I place a great deal of respect. He said that Dr. Ross was his first Virgil professor and was exceptionally capable, but that he had not read this book yet. I ordered the book on his recommendation, and I found that my faith was well-founded.

Ross addresses the vast topic of the Aeneid with an easy intellect which is simultaneously learned enough for the serious Vergilian scholar and lucid enough for the novice. He explicates many of the profound complexities of Virgil in a detailed, and even enjoyable, way while not getting bogged down in scholarly minutia. As a fledgling scholar, I would have welcomed some footnotes, but, for the interested amateur, this work is delightfully devoid of the cryptic, and often topically pointless, miniscule at the bottom of the pages.

Ross not only treats many of the more troubling, and therefore more interesting, themes of the Aeneid, but he also puts Virgil's final work in the context of his earlier works. Ross gives a nice synopsis of the Bucolics/Eclogues and the Georgics, especially focusing on those aspects which are most pertinent to the Aeneid.

Finally, for those who are not versed in the meters and accentuation of Latin poetry, Ross provides an extremely competent overview of these elements which are so important in appreciating the complexity and beauty of Latin epic in general and the masterpiece of Virgil in particular.

I would recommend this book to anyone that has ever found something titilating in the pages of Rome's greatest poet.