CLAS3375 · Classical Studies

Vergil

Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences

Vergil's Aeneid, the premier work of Roman poetry, recounts the struggles of refugees from the Trojan War as they wander in search of a new home and in the process lay the foundations of Rome. We will read large selections of the epic in Latin and the whole in English, considering how Romans viewed themselves in their broader Mediterranean context, what archetypical values Vergil embodies in his characters, and how the poem speaks to the anxieties and interests of Vergil's contemporaries at the beginning of the Empire.