Dr. Bainard Cowan
Tasked with writing Rome's epic during a crucial moment in world history, Virgil knew he had to reawaken a sense of something higher in life--something that one could fight and die for--in a literary audience of skeptics and part-time philosophers exhausted from a century of internecine war and terror. With unerring genius, Virgil "divined at a decisive hour of the world what the future would love" (Ste.-Beuve): self-sacrifice, passion, devotion to duty, decisiveness in the midst of uncertainty, sympathy--and much more. The Aeneid, the epic poem of Western civilization, is the quintessential poem for adults. How will we regard it in our time, which seems yet another crucial moment in history?
Four Thursdays, 6:30-8:30 pm: Oct. 4, 11, 25 & Nov. 1
Tuition: Members $90, Nonmembers $105, Member Teachers $30
Text: Robert Fitzgerald's translation, ISBN: 978-0-679-72952-5
Text available online at amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com
or in stores at the Barnes and Noble at Lincoln Park (7700 W. Northwest Hwy).