Wordsworth's Soundings in the Aeneid

Abstract

Wordsworth's translation of Virgil's Aeneid I–III has been largely neglected by Romanticists and classical reception scholars, in part because it is considered to be an unfinished, failed artistic project. Amongst a handful of scholars, Bruce Graver has convincingly demonstrated the originality of Wordsworth's Latin translation. This article goes further to suggest the artistic coherence of Wordsworth's translation of Virgil . Aeneid I–III trace the arc of Aeneas's fall and exile from Troy and discovery of a new home. In translating Aeneas's journey, Wordsworth enacts a quest for a new poetic voice, at a time when his creative powers as an English poet were at a low ebb. His engagement with Virgil's Latin can be compared to his encounters with Nature and the River Derwent in earlier poetry; in both cases, the poet plays host to an alienatingly other, divine maternal presence which eventually rejuvenates and confirms the poet's voice in English.