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    Virgil was a Roman poet who lived during a period of turmoil in the late Roman Republic. He is most famous for writing the Aeneid, an epic poem that links the founding of Rome to the Trojan hero Aeneas. David Wishart's novel I, Virgil is a fictionalized autobiography that depicts Virgil's life and relationship with Augustus Caesar, who commissioned the Aeneid to justify his rule. It shows Virgil struggling between his personal life and public responsibilities as a poet, and trying to include a subtle criticism of Augustus in his poem. The book provides historical context by including real figures that Virgil interacted with, and suggests that Augustus may have poisoned Virgil in

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    Books _ i, Virgil - The New York Times

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    Virgil was a Roman poet who lived during a period of turmoil in the late Roman Republic. He is most famous for writing the Aeneid, an epic poem that links the founding of Rome to the Trojan hero Aeneas. David Wishart's novel I, Virgil is a fictionalized autobiography that depicts Virgil's life and relationship with Augustus Caesar, who commissioned the Aeneid to justify his rule. It shows Virgil struggling between his personal life and public responsibilities as a poet, and trying to include a subtle criticism of Augustus in his poem. The book provides historical context by including real figures that Virgil interacted with, and suggests that Augustus may have poisoned Virgil in

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    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    87 views3 pages

    Books - I, Virgil - The New York Times

    Uploaded by

    gfvila
    Virgil was a Roman poet who lived during a period of turmoil in the late Roman Republic. He is most famous for writing the Aeneid, an epic poem that links the founding of Rome to the Trojan hero Aeneas. David Wishart's novel I, Virgil is a fictionalized autobiography that depicts Virgil's life and relationship with Augustus Caesar, who commissioned the Aeneid to justify his rule. It shows Virgil struggling between his personal life and public responsibilities as a poet, and trying to include a subtle criticism of Augustus in his poem. The book provides historical context by including real figures that Virgil interacted with, and suggests that Augustus may have poisoned Virgil in

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    BOOKS : I, VIRGIL - The New York Times

    http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/31/news/31iht-booktue.t_1.html?pag...

    This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only. You can order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, please click here or use the "Reprints" tool that appears next to any article. Visit www.nytreprints.com for samples and additional information. Order a reprint of this article now.

    October 31, 1995

    BOOKS : I, VIRGIL
    By Lee Dembart

    I, VIRGIL By David Wishart.9.99. 337 pages. Hodder and Stoughton. Reviewed by Lee Dembart PHIL Levine, a much-beloved classics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, began his course on Virgil's Aeneid by announcing to the class, "You are about to read the greatest epic poem ever written." There was no hesitation, no qualification, no nod to Homer or Dante or Milton or anyone else.Virgil was simply the best. And for 2,000 years, students of Latin have memorized the opening words of the great poem, "Arma virumque cano" "I sing of arms and a man." Homer's Iliad and Odyssey tell the story of the Trojan War from the point of view of the winning Greeks.Virgil's Aeneid tells the story of the Trojan War from the point of view of the losing Trojans their travels and travails before finally landing in Italy, where their descendants foundedRome four centuries later. Near the beginning of the poem, Jupiter gives the Trojans and Rome their destiny:"To these I set no bounds in space or time. I have given them rule without end."Their divine mission is to conquer the world and civilize it. "I, Virgil" by David Wishart is a fictionalized autobiography of the poet Publius Vergilius Maro (knownas Virgil), who was born near Mantua in 70 B.C. and who lived during a period of immense social and political turmoil, civil wars, the assassination of Julius Caesar and the end of the Roman Republic. Of the Greek poet Homer we know absolutely nothing.It is not even certain that there was an individual by that name who wrote the poems that are attributed to him. But we do know some details of Virgil's life, and Wishart, a classics scholar in Scotland, has woven his story around them.The result is a splendid blend of the personal and the historic.Through these pages wander Caesar, Brutus, Pompey, Antony and Cleopatra, the poet Horace and Augustus Caesar, among many others. As in the Aeneid itself, however, Virgil's personal story is at least as compelling as thehistorical events that were going on around him.Just as Aeneas, the hero of the poem, was torn between

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    BOOKS : I, VIRGIL - The New York Times

    http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/31/news/31iht-booktue.t_1.html?pag...

    his private life and his public responsibilities, so, in Wishart's telling, was Virgil. Virgil's poems were very popular in his own time.He was befriended and supported by Maecenas, the minister of culture under Augustus, and he traveled in the highest circles of the Roman court. Augustus himself commissioned the Aeneid.He wanted a poem that would establish his divine right to rule and link him to the founders of Rome. In Wishart's book, Augustus tells Virgil:"We you and I together have the chance to build a perfect world.I can control men's bodies, even their minds, but only you can give me their hearts." Virgil, who does not want to be a political flack, tries to get out of it.Augustus tells him, "I need you to justify me, not for my own sake but for Rome's." Though the Aeneid was the most important work of Virgil's life, the climactic scene between him and Augustus occurs just 22 pages before the end of the book. But Wishart has made clear throughout the "autobiography" that Virgil is an independent man, not easily broken, who enjoys having the benefits of knowing the right people but does not want to sell out in order to get them. Virgil decides to write the Aeneid on two levels.On the surface, it will be just what Augustus wants.Below the surface, it will be critical of him.He hopes that Augustus's ego will blind him to the underlying subtext. But Maecenas understands it all, and he tells Augustus what has happened. According to the historical record, Virgil left for Greece, where he intended to spend three years editing the poem.Augustus caught up with him and told him to return with him to Italy. Virgil caught a chill on the way back across the Adriatic, and he died shortly after landing in Brindisi in 19 B.C. In Wishart's telling, Augustus, angered by the poem, had Virgil poisoned on the ship. No one, of course, will ever know whether that is in fact what happened.But it makes a wonderful story, very well crafted and very well told. Read this book and you be transported to the first century B.C.You will see the world through the eyes of the ancient Romans. Things have changed enormously in the 20 centuries since.But human nature has not changed a whit. Lee Dembart, who reviews books regularly for the Los Angeles Times, wrote this for the International Herald Tribune.

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    05/05/2013 21:11

    BOOKS : I, VIRGIL - The New York Times

    http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/31/news/31iht-booktue.t_1.html?pag...

    Copyright 2013 The New York Times Company Back to T op

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