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Dan Weaver's Reviews > The Aeneid of Virgil
The Aeneid of Virgil
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A gifted poet's account of playing Mario Brothers to level 7.
Expect a lot of "then Aeneas was told he needed to fetch a golden bough. But he could only obtain the bough if he completed such-and-such. So he did. Then he went to the underground world and gave the bough to the boatman, and the boatman therefore let him cross the river..." but with lyric flourish. It's maybe not Mario, but some side-scrolling platformer, definitely.
If I understand correctly, Virgil wrote it by order of Caesar Augustus to a.) connect him, CA, to the line of the founder of Rome thus giving him special first citizen status if not divine right to rule b.) connect the Romans to the Greeks, toward whom they had an inferiority complex and c.) justify imposing Roman culture on barbarian cultures as imposing order.
Virgil never finished it. Before he died he ordered the incomplete manuscript to be destroyed. This book shouldn't even exist!
Expect a lot of "then Aeneas was told he needed to fetch a golden bough. But he could only obtain the bough if he completed such-and-such. So he did. Then he went to the underground world and gave the bough to the boatman, and the boatman therefore let him cross the river..." but with lyric flourish. It's maybe not Mario, but some side-scrolling platformer, definitely.
If I understand correctly, Virgil wrote it by order of Caesar Augustus to a.) connect him, CA, to the line of the founder of Rome thus giving him special first citizen status if not divine right to rule b.) connect the Romans to the Greeks, toward whom they had an inferiority complex and c.) justify imposing Roman culture on barbarian cultures as imposing order.
Virgil never finished it. Before he died he ordered the incomplete manuscript to be destroyed. This book shouldn't even exist!
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
December 1, 2007
–
Finished Reading
December 30, 2007
– Shelved
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Your review reflects exactly how I feel about The Aeneid. Thanks for the wit and smile.
Put in some context, pretty please. It was a poem of the type of meter that has not been attempted then or since.
I'm confused. Where is your actual review of the Aeneid?
Not sure which translation you read... I read it in my Latin class and we translated it literally, and it is beautifully written.
But then again, how many people listen to a dying author when they order their books to be destroyed?
It wasn't actually ordered or commissioned by Caesar - a common misconception since they were friends and ran in the same circles. Although Virgil did want to write a national epic and glorify Rome, and it does support Caesar and the Augustan regime, Virgil was first and foremost a poet, not a propagandist :)
Because of you I'm seeing that Donkey Kong was simply an allegory for the Epic of Gilgamesh. Possibly also some conflation between Dante and Dig-Dug.
Thanks for the funny and thoughtful review!