The Aeneid of Virgil (The Teaching Company: The Great Courses)

by Elizabeth Vandiver

CD audiobook, 1999

Status

Available

Publication

The Teaching Company (1999). 6 cds and course guidebook

Description

The Aeneid is the great national epic of ancient Rome, and one of the most important works of literature ever written. And with Professor Vandiver's twelve instructive lectures, you'll enter fully into the gripping tale that Virgil tells. Join Aeneas on his long journey west from ruined Troy to the founding of a new nation in Italy, and see how he weaves a rich network of compelling human themes. Your encounter with the Aeneid focuses on careful, detailed examinations of the epic's background, main themes, and significant episodes. You'll get a helpful introduction to Virgil's Latin epic and the mythic and literary background with which Virgil was working, including an insightful summary of the legends of the Trojan War and Romulus and Remus. From there, you'll dive into the poem itself with lectures that, in their clarity, economy, and enthusiasm, you're sure to find illuminating and thoroughly engaging. Throughout it all, the figure of Aeneas is never far from center stage- as fighter and lover, father and son, refugee and ruler, wanderer and founder, spellbinding storyteller, and sword-wielding man of action. Whether you read the narrative of his adventures as a paean to the glories of Rome or a cautionary tale about the human costs of empire, by the end of these lectures you'll come to understand precisely why Tennyson called Virgil a lord of language and lauded his special gift for the golden phrase.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member datrappert

I have read the Iliad, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and the Odyssey, which I found episodic and lacking momentum, but with some great scenes and a rousing conclusion. So naturally I felt like I needed to read the Aeneid, which draws so much from both works. My attempt failed however, as I found it

to just not be that interesting. Perhaps it stems from the self-serving nature of the poem to begin with, to celebrate the superiority of Rome by telling of its founding by Aeneas, a survivor of the Trojan War. But whereas the Iliad, though a classic work of the Greeks, is more sympathetic to the vanquished Trojans, the Aeneid seems to lack this distinction. So I was excited to finally get a chance to listen to the Teaching Company's course on the Aeneid, and I'm glad I did. Professor Vandiver is excellent. I listened to the audio version; I'm not sure if there is a video one or not; this is a pretty old course. She knows her subject matter extremely well and conveys it just as well to an audience who may not know a lot about the Aeneid or its background. She sketches in the known facts (and speculation) about the poet Virgil and how the Aeneid was written--but not completely finished--in the reign of Augustus. She then provides a thorough book-by-book discussion of the poem, providing her own and various others' interpretations of key passages. At the end, she sums up the historical significance of the poem, which is far-reaching. All in all, it is a very good series of lectures, the only weakness being, in my opinion, the Aeneid itself. Although Virgil varies the details and outcomes, so many episodes are inspired by the Iliad and the Odyssey that the poem seems to lack originality. Nor does Aeneas himself seem as interesting a character as Achilles or Odysseus. And there is no opposing character to match Hector of Troy. So in the end, I'm very happy to have listened to this course and to have gained an understanding of the story of the Iliad--but I am not now inspired to go out and read it.

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LibraryThing member themulhern

Great work by Elizabeth Vandiver. But now I have no more to look forward to, I've done them all.

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