Publication date:
07 June 2007Length of book:
448 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksDimensions:
235x161mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9780739112373
Madness Unchained is a comprehensive introduction to and study of Virgil's Aeneid. The book moves through Virgil's epic scene by scene and offers a detailed explication of not only all the major (and many minor) difficulties of interpretation, but also provides a cohesive argument that explores Virgil's point in writing this epic of Roman mythology and Augustan propaganda: the role of fury or madness in Rome's national identity.
There have been other books that have attempted to present a complete guide to the Aeneid, but this is the first to address every episode in the poem, omitting nothing, and aiming itself at an audience that ranges from the Advanced Placement Virgil student in secondary school to the professional Virgilian and everyone in-between, both Latinists and the Latin-less. Individual chapters correspond to the books of the poem; unlike some volumes that prejudice the reader's interpretation of the work by rearranging the order of episodes in order to influence their impact on the audience, this book moves in the order Virgil intended, and also gives rather fuller exposition to the second half of the poem, Virgil's self-proclaimed "greater work" (maius opus).
The notes to each chapter, as well as the "Selected Bibliography," are meant to provide a guide to the dense forest that is Virgilian scholarship. The notes aim at familiarizing the interested reader with the better and lesser known byways of Virgilian criticism, both English/American and continental, and at introducing the reader to some of the perennial problems of Virgilian literary criticism.
It is hoped that Madness Unchained will become the standard introductory guide to the poem, useful in college and university courses in mythology, Roman literature, epic poetry, and Virgil (in Latin or translation), as well as offering a reappraisal of the poem to the many readers and scholars in other disciplines who know they should "like" the Aeneid, but who have always been perplexed by the seemingly stra
There have been other books that have attempted to present a complete guide to the Aeneid, but this is the first to address every episode in the poem, omitting nothing, and aiming itself at an audience that ranges from the Advanced Placement Virgil student in secondary school to the professional Virgilian and everyone in-between, both Latinists and the Latin-less. Individual chapters correspond to the books of the poem; unlike some volumes that prejudice the reader's interpretation of the work by rearranging the order of episodes in order to influence their impact on the audience, this book moves in the order Virgil intended, and also gives rather fuller exposition to the second half of the poem, Virgil's self-proclaimed "greater work" (maius opus).
The notes to each chapter, as well as the "Selected Bibliography," are meant to provide a guide to the dense forest that is Virgilian scholarship. The notes aim at familiarizing the interested reader with the better and lesser known byways of Virgilian criticism, both English/American and continental, and at introducing the reader to some of the perennial problems of Virgilian literary criticism.
It is hoped that Madness Unchained will become the standard introductory guide to the poem, useful in college and university courses in mythology, Roman literature, epic poetry, and Virgil (in Latin or translation), as well as offering a reappraisal of the poem to the many readers and scholars in other disciplines who know they should "like" the Aeneid, but who have always been perplexed by the seemingly stra
At last, a commentary on the Aeneid that doesn't need more decoding devices than Virgil's poem! Dr. Fratantuono's book stands apart for its adherence to a sensible, and yet profound, analysis of a poem that too often in the last several decades hasbeen the testing ground for any number of new approaches to literary criticism. F begins with a heartfelt lament on the way Books VII-XII have been practically ignored in the curricula of American Classical education at all levels. His commentary attemptsto correct this by paying due attention to what V himself considered to be the greater part of his poem. One of my favorite features of F's book is the way the author weaves into his commentary the relevant passages from the poem, and, in so doing, keeps the commentary focused strictly on the passages. The translations, which by F's own admission, do not aspire to any 'literary greatness,' are still some of the best I have ever read. (Perhaps F's description of all translations of the Aeneid as 'betrayals' of the original Latin poem is in fact a tad too harsh.) Like V, who did not compose his opus in a 'linear fashion' but who worked on individual sections as the spirit moved him, F chose to write a commentary which, while remarkably coherent, ca