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Golden Verses: poetry of the augustan age | ||||
2003 • 1-58510-064-1 • paper • 400 pages • 7 x 10 • $19.95 A new anthology containing fresh and rhythmic translations of the great poets from the Augustan period. | About the Author | Excerpt | Contents | Preface | Review | | ||||
Covering a broad range of verse with introduction, maps, chronology, glossary, bibliography and notes. Designed to be read in conjunction with major works of the Augustan Age—Ovid’s Metamorphosis and Vergil’s Aeneid. As with all Focus Classical Library titles, Alessi’s text is designed specifically for the college market, providing students with access to the thought and context at the roots of our culture. | ||||
Paul T. Alessi is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He earned his PhD at the University of Missouri. He has published on the poet Propertius, and his research and interests are with Augustan literature, Roman culture and Etruscan archaeology.
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This book is designed for the general reading public and for students and teachers in courses on the literature of the Augustan Age. Almost all courses on Augustan Age literature include the Aeneid of Vergil and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. To cover the broad range of other works and authors of the period teachers and students must buy numerous other books from which normally only a quarter of the poems (at best) are read and discussed, or teachers are reduced to distributing massive amounts of photocopies simply to provide modest samplings from the great poets of the period. It is my hope that this volume will be useful in the classroom and be appealing to the public in its own right. I have tried to offer translations that are accurate, vigorous, fresh, and rhythmic. In making this anthology, I have followed a few simple principles. With the exception of two passages from the second book of the Georgics, I have translated complete poems and books. The two passages referred to are so well-known and appreciated that I did not think it was possible to omit them in any selection from the Georgics, and, besides, they are self-containing and powerful enough to be read and valued on their own. I have not included any selections from the Aeneid or the Metamorphoses. Their inclusion in their entirety would produce a prodigious and unwieldy tome and it would be difficult to make any one selection. I refer the reader and teacher to the number of available and inexpensive translations of both texts I have preserved the general shape and have retained the structure, line-division, and couplet and stanza form of the originals. The translations are not so literal as to be stilted nor too free to puzzle and frustrate the reader of Latin. Since it is impossible to reproduce the sounds of the Latin in an English translation, I have concentrated on attempting to capture the tone and diction. When the original language is elevated or vulgar, so too is that of the translation. I hope that the modern reader of these translations can hear the living voices of those poets who delighted an audience of two thousand years ago. I wish to thank profusely Ms. Theresa Lu Koch for her generous assistance in editing this volume. Because of her unflagging work, her constant encouragement, and, most importantly, her friendship, I dedicate this book to her.
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...The selections are rich, varied, and broad-ranging enough to satisfy most instructors' (or readers') needs; the translations are sensitive, accurate, and certainly readable. Indeed, the translations alone represent an impressive achievement. -- Alain Growing, University of Washington
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Golden Verses: Poetry of the Augustan Age
