This recent translation, from the original Italian, by Will Schutt of Andrea Marcolongo's La Lezione di Enea is an enjoyable work in which the reader is invited to accompany Marcolongo on her reflections of the relevancy of Virgil's magnum opus. Marcolongo reflects on her own experience as a secondary school student reading the Aeneid for the first time and grappling with an epic hero whose claim to fame was his commitment to duty or pietas. Any student would seemingly rather prefer a more glamorous heroic character, such as those of Homer's great epics. During the struggles and loneliness of the COVID-19 lockdowns, Marcolongo finds herself reflecting on the appeal of the Aeneid and re-evaluating her original struggles with Aeneas as an epic hero. During the tumult and incertitude of a global pandemic, the character of Aeneas presents himself in this new context as the hero for our times. In her reflections, Marcolongo discovers an epic hero perfect for our own times – an epic hero who is deeply human in his empathy, in his emotions, and in his tenacity in the face of adversity.
The work is composed of nine chapters, which range in focus from Aeneas as the unlikely hero to the artistry of the Aeneid as a literary work to the historical reception of the Aeneid as a monumental text of the literary canon. At times, the work can seem a bit meandering, which can make it enjoyable for the reader who is familiar with the Aeneid and who likely shares the experience of being frustrated at times with Aeneas as an epic hero. Marcolongo concludes her reflections on Aeneas with an excerpt from Giorgio Caproni's poem about the relevance of the Aeneid. Through this poem, she highlights two essential characteristics of Aeneas – two characteristics which she seems to propose as an essential hermeneutic key for truly appreciating Aeneas as an authentic and truly human epic hero – determination and uncertainty.
Excerpts from this work could certainly be used to inspire classroom discussions about the complexity of Aeneas as an epic hero or when one's students are inevitably perplexed by the epic hero who seems all too human and all too real at times. Individual chapters could easily be separated out from this work to be used in the classroom. The author's writing style allows the work to be easily accessible to the secondary school student and the reflections back on her own study of the Aeneid as a secondary school student allows the work to be easily relatable to current students. There are definitely moments reading the Aeneid when the reader naturally gets frustrated with Aeneas and in those moments, Marcolongo's reflections might help to inform or at least provide a framework for our struggles with this man who did not seek glory in far-off wars, but who rather sought a place of refuge on distant shores for the remnant of his defeated people.
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