Stories from Virgil

Church, Alfred John, 1829-1912Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.5

Word count: 290K words
Chapters: 30

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Stories from Virgil by Alfred John ChurchAuthor: Church, Alfred John, 1829-1912,Language: English, Class: PA: Language and Literatures: Classical Languages and Literature, Release Date: Aug 30, 2012

Editor's review

Stories from Virgil is Alfred John Church's prose retelling of Virgil's epic for general readers, drawn mainly from the Aeneid and recounting Aeneas's journey from the fall of Troy to the founding of a state in Italy. Church long devoted himself to popular retellings of classical works; his style is clear and the plot flows smoothly, with some of the rhetorical elaboration of the Latin original omitted while the main characters and key turning points are retained, so that readers unfamiliar with the classical languages can still grasp the skeleton of the epic. The book suits those seeking an introduction to Virgil and the Roman mythological tradition, and also young readers or families reading together to learn Western classical allusions. Note that it is a retelling, not a translation; scholarly work should still return to the original poem.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers who want the main plot of the Aeneid without Latin
Middle school students and language or history teachers needing introductory material on classical myth
Parents who want to tell children stories of Troy and the origins of Rome
Writers interested in the sources of Western literary allusions who want to fill gaps in background knowledge

Not a good fit for

Classicists needing a complete translation or line-by-line commentary on Virgil's original poem
Readers expecting a verse translation who value the rhetoric and metre of the original
Readers interested only in Greek myth with no wish to engage the Roman epic tradition

Reading tips

Read the fall of Troy first, then follow Aeneas's voyage and sort out the main stopping places and encounters.
After each story, check the character list to confirm the stances and interventions of gods and mortals.
Read with a map or place-name notes to help understand the spatial线索 of the Mediterranean voyage and the founding in Italy.
For family reading, choose one complete story at a time and have the child retell the causes and consequences and the characters' choices.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a translation of Virgil's original poem?

No. It is Church's prose retelling of Virgil's epic, focused on plot and character rather than line-by-line translation. It suits beginners learning the story's outline, but quoting the original or doing scholarly work still requires a formal translation or the Latin text.

Can I understand it without a background in classical literature?

Yes. The retelling deliberately lowers the barriers of language and allusion, and the narrative moves forward mainly through events. Readers need only a rough impression of the Trojan War and Greek myth to enter; divine names can be checked in the character list as needed.

Is it suitable for children?

It suits young readers as an introduction to classical epic, with strong story appeal and manageable length. Some war and divine-punishment episodes may be intense, so parents may wish to skim first before deciding to read together or select passages.

Comments

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About the author

Church, Alfred John, 1829-1912 Author

Alfred John Church (1829–1912) is known as a British writer and translator of classical literature, best known for retelling Greek and Roman history and literature for general readers. Nine of his works are held in the collection, including Stories from the Greek Tragedians, Stories From Livy, Stories from Virgil and Stories of the Old World, which draw on classical epics, histories and tragedies. Also present are narrative works on Rome, Carthage and the fall of Athens, such as Lords of the World and Callias, as well as With the King at Oxford, set in Oxford. Public information is limited and details such as his nationality remain to be confirmed. Overall, his writing emphasizes narrative and readability, introducing the classical tradition to young people and general readers, and has had some influence on the popularization of classical literature in the English-speaking world.