Notes on the Greater Work: The Iliadic Aeneid and the Commentary Tradition
By Lee Fratantuono
The massive quasi-commentary of James Henry tapers off just as Virgil announces his maius opus. School editions of the Aeneid even to the present day regularly favor the first half of the epic at the expense of Virgil’s song of the rebirth of the wrath of Achilles in Latium.
The Virgile français in the Napoleonic Era: Delille's Commented Edition of the Aeneid
By Marco Mistretta Romani
Delille's four-volume edition of the Aeneid, with French poetic version, notes, and illustrations, appeared in 1804 as the result of a remarkable teamwork project (also involving L. Fontanes, J.F. Michaud, and J.M. Moreau). The translation, still widely read and eulogized among the early twentieth-century littérateurs (see Ziolkowski 1993, 66), contributed to make the French Alexandrine more flexible by trying to reproduce Latin rhythm (Downs 1940, 531).
The End of an Era: Seventeenth-Century Aeneid Commentaries
By M.H.K. (Maarten) Jansen
This paper shows how in the course of the seventeenth century the character and role of the Virgilian commentary changed radically. It begins by offering a discussion of the prime characteristics of the Aeneid commentaries of Juan Luis de La Cerda (1612 and 1617), Thomas Farnaby (1634) and Charles de la Rue (1675). In my discussion, I will approach these works from the viewpoint of the management of knowledge (Blair 2010, Moss 1996, Grafton & Jardine 1986) and with the help of Foucault’s concept of knowledge archives (Foucault 1969).