David Hadbawnik's astonishing modern translation of the Aeneid has been appearing in excerpts in a number of US publications, but this was the first time that the first half of the sequence hadbeen brought together. This handsome volume presents Hadbawnik's version of the first half of Virgil's great national epic of ancient Rome, with atmospheric illustrations from Carrie Kaser. This hardcover edition is released in 2021, shortly before publication of Volume 2, covering the remaining six books of the epic.
These translations are not only full of light, but also speed ... Hadbawnik's Aeneid is not the creative destruction of erasure, but rather the well-crafted impoverishment of something potentially too rich to take in. -Joe Milutis, Jacket2
David Hadbawnik's free translation of the text steers away from the affectations of seamlessness that direct translations attempt, [ and] instead shows the self-awareness of the translation as an effort at subsuming and translator's role as appropriator. Hadbawnik uses this awareness to work against a translation of replacement by exposing the tension between the language and the text. -Jonathan Lohr, Actuary Lit
Juxtaposed with the gore and horror are Carrie Kaser's amazing illustrations, which evoke both the soft touch of watercolor and the grittiness of smudged charcoal. Deer and sheep graze. Swans, like the ones Venus describes "flock[ ing] and sing[ ing] in the sky," soar, and some "in a long line look down / at the others," echoing the image of the wandering men of Troy. -Lisa Ampleman, Diagram
Publius Vergilius Maro, known to us as Virgil (70 B.C.-19 B.C.), is best remembered for his masterpiece, The Aeneid, in which he represented the Emperor Augustus as a descendant of the half-divine Aeneas, a refugee from the fall of Troy and legendary founder of Rome. Virgil claimed on his deathbed that The Aeneid was unfinished and expressed a desire to have it burned, but it became the national epic of ancient Rome, a monument of Latin literature, and has been regarded as one of the great classics of Western literature ever since. Virgil's other works include the Eclogues and the Georgics, also considered masterpieces.
David Hadbawnik is a poet, translator, teacher, and medieval scholar. He edited Thomas Meyer's Beowulf (punctum books, 2012) and co-edited selections from Jack Spicer's Beowulf (CUNY's Lost and Found Document Series, 2011); he is the editor of the critical volume Postmodern Poetry and Queer Medievalisms: Time Mechanics (Medieval Institute Press, 2021); and he has published essays on medieval, early modern, and contemporary poetry. Other books include Ovid in Exile (Interbirth Books, 2007), Field Work (BlazeVox Books, 2011), and Holy Sonnets to Orpheus and Other Poems (Delete Press, 2018). He currently lives in Minnesota with his wife and son.
