The Aeneid of Virgil [The Great Courses]

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 show more 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. show less

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