Virgil, Aeneid, Book XI

Book XI of the Aeneid covers four crucial days in Aeneas' struggle against the Latins. In it, Virgil gives us the funeral of Pallas, the great Latin war-council, Turnus' plan to ambush Aeneas, and the aristeia and death of Camilla. K. W. Gransden sees the second half of the Roman national epic as "Virgil's Iliad." In his introduction and commentary, he relates the themes and structure of Book XI not only to the rest of the Aeneid but also to relevant passages in the Iliad. Gransden shows how, despite his adoption of the epic form, Virgil's style is influenced by Alexandrian miniaturism, Callimachean theory, and the poetry of the neoteroi. In addition to questions of style and interpretation raised in the commentary, there are sections in the introduction covering the Virgilian hexameter and narrative technique.