The Aeneid of Virgil is one of the
greatest works of Classical antiquity. This study by the Virgilian scholar R.
Deryck Williams, first published in 1987 and long unavailable, sets the Aeneid in its historical literary
background and shows how Virgil related his own world of the newly
established Roman Empire to the experience of the past. The poetic qualities
of epic are analysed and illustrated by frequent quotations from the Latin,
always with prose translations. The book will be appreciated by students and
teachers of literature, and by knowledgeable non-academic readers.