The Aeneid

The founding epic of Rome, rendered in a fluid, metrical translation that sings Virgil’s stately verse in a vivid, contemporary idiom.

Like Emily Wilson’s celebrated translations of Homer, this new Aeneid—the first collaborative translation of the poem in English—is rendered in an unrhymed iambic pentameter that engages modern readers while also preserving the epic dignity and pathos of the original. Scott McGill and Susannah Wright’s version also faithfully conveys the poem’s delicate balance between its triumphant celebration of the Roman Empire and its sensitivity to the human costs, for victors and vanquished alike, of antiquity’s most powerful and influential society. The result is a poem in English every bit as complex, inviting, and affecting as the Latin original. With a rich and informative introduction from Emily Wilson and the full complement of maps and other supporting material that have made Wilson’s Homer translations the standard for our time, this gorgeous edition of Rome’s founding epic will capture the imaginations and stir the souls of a new generation of readers.

About the Author

Susannah Wright is an assistant professor of classical studies and Roman history at Rice University. She lives in Houston, Texas.Scott McGill is Deedee McMurtry Professor in Humanities at Rice University. He lives in Houston, Texas.Emily Wilson is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in Renaissance and early modern studies, a MacArthur Fellow, and a Guggenheim Fellow. In addition to Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, she has also published translations of Sophocles, Euripides, and Seneca. She lives in Philadelphia.