num_pages: 97
description: A masterpiece from one of the greatest poets of the centuryIn a momentous publication Seamus Heaney's translation of Book VI of the Aeneid Virgil's epic poem composed sometime between 29 and 19 BC follows the hero Aeneas on his descent into the underworld. In Stepping Stones a book of interviews conducted by Dennis O'Driscoll Heaney acknowledged the significance of the poem to his writing noting that there's one Virgilian journey that has indeed been a constant presence and that is Aeneas's venture into the underworld. The motifs in Book VI have been in my head for years--the golden bough Charon's barge the quest to meet the shade of the father.In this new translation Heaney employs the same deft handling of the original combined with the immediacy of language and sophisticated poetic voice as was on show in his translation of Beowulf a reimagining which in the words of James Wood created something imperishable and great that is stainless--stainless because its force as poetry makes it untouchable by the claw of literalism: it lives singly as an English language poem.
language: English
title: Aeneid Book VI
publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux