I have never read any Latin poetry. I know that the Aeneid

>>8301616
If you can't read Latin or be bothered to dictionary through it; you lose the meter and sonority of the words, which leaves you only with images formed using mis-nuanced words.

>>8301623

It is ok. My favorite thing in poetry is the metaphors and the imagery, more than the sound (that's why, in my opinion, Shakespeare is sublime even in translation).

But my native language is Portuguese, so I will try to follow the original texts, even if I am reading the translation in English. Since Portuguese resembles Latin quite significantly, I might have a feeling of how the original sound like.

learn basic latin. read catullus' couplets. move on to his lesbia poems. then his invective. then ovid's fasti. then lucretius. then back to ovid's metamorphoses, and read anything cicero wrote about language alongside it. then ovid's sadness.
if you want to get into technique more than meaning, after catullus, go through virgil in order and then lucretius.

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>>8301616

This is a great starting point

>>8301616
For Lucretius I'd recommend Rolfe Humphries

It's a beautiful poem and a beautiful translation, but Lucretius was an ideological jackass

>>8301686
>but Lucretius was an ideological jackass

Why?

>>8301838
he was a fucking philosopher who had views I disagree with

>>8301616
Honestly anon just get a translation in Portuguese (or even Spanish). Romance languages translate Latin much better than English, with its rough constonants and rigid word order.

If you really want an English translation, Robert Fitzgerald's Aeneid is superb. And the Aeneid is one of the best things ever written (T.S. Eliot called it "the great classic of Western civilisation").

>>8301838
Lucretius was a partisan Epicurean, i.e. atheists who believed that The Good was the avoidance of pain. They opposed the Stoics and Platonists.

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>>8301938
>And the Aeneid is one of the best things ever written (T.S. Eliot called it "the great classic of Western civilisation").

I was reading it some days ago. It was nice, but I was a little sad that there were not too many metaphors; the language is very pure and the images simple. I was hoping for something more like Shakespeare. :(

By the way, have you already read pic related?

>>8301623
I think we have to make a sticky page about learning literary languages, focusing on classics things like textbooks, most accessible works etc

>>8301961

What was Virgil's physical appearance? He is always handsome in artworks.

>>8301961
>I was reading it some days ago. It was nice, but I was a little sad that there were not too many metaphors; the language is very pure and the images simple

Is this true?

>>8302390
>What was Virgil's physical appearance?

Virgil was large in person and stature, with a swarthy complexion, a peasant's brow, and uneven health, for he commonly suffered from pain in his stomach, throat, and head; indeed, he often spat up blood. 9. He was sparing of food and wine. With regard to pleasure, he was partial to boys. <But good men have thought that he loved boys as Socrates loved Alcibiades, and Plato his favorites ( paidiká).> He loved Cebes and Alexander most of all. Alexander was a gift to him from Asinius Pollio; the second poem of his Bucolics refers to him as "Alexis." Nor was the other one unlearned; in fact, Cebes was a poet as well. 10. It is also circulated that he lived together with Plotia Hieria. But Asconius Pedianus maintains that she herself made a habit out of telling stories about the older man; indeed, that although Varius invited him to share, he refused obstinately. 11. For the rest, all are thoroughly agreed that his life was upright, both in mouth and mind, with the result that he was commonly known in Naples as Parthenias ["the Virgin"]. And if perchance someone should spot him in public at Rome (which he passed through very rarely), he would seek refuge in the nearest house, cut off from those who were pointing him out.

http://virgil.org/vitae/

>>8301623
This is an academic meme. Cicero will be Cicero and Ovid will be Ovid in whatever language they are translated in.

Don't get cucked out of some great stories by a bunch of basement dwelling false patricians.

If learning Latin is something you're willing to do, I'm sure it could only enhance your experience.

But this "don't even bother" crap forgoes the fact that the majority of readers who have benefitted from and subsequently canonized these works did not read it in the original (except for the likes of Shakespeare who would have been able to recite the Metamorphoses in Latin). Not to mention this dumbfuckery "take my word for it" attitude that circulates amongst you fuckers who havent read this shit in the original either, and are merely making string claims off rumors, and preventing folks from damn good experiences.

OP, whatever Oxford World has for a translation is your best bet, in my experience.

>>8302450
>http://virgil.org/vitae/

How Virgil composed

21. Soon after, he commenced work on the Aeneid: a complex theme of diverse moods, the equivalent, as it were, of both Homeric poems; well-acquainted, moreover, with names and objects Greek, as well as Latin; and (in this he took the greatest pains) which would encompass the origin of the city of Rome and of Augustus. 22. It is handed down that, while he was composing the Georgics, he usually dictated a great number of verses which he had thought out in the morning, and would, in revising them throughout the day, reduce them to a very small number, saying that he brought his poem into being in a fashion not unlike the bear's, that in fact he fashioned it by licking. 23. As for the Aeneid, he first drafted it in prose and divided it into twelve books, deciding to construct it bit by bit, so that he could do each part as it seized his fancy, taking up nothing in order. <So some say. Others are of this opinion, that if he had lived longer, Virgil would have written four and twenty books, up to the time of Augustus, and that he meant to hurry through the rest, but to deal with the deeds of Augustus in detail. Wherefore,> 24. lest anything should impede his momentum, he would let certain things pass unfinished; others he propped up, as it were, with lightweight verses, joking that they were placed there as struts, to hold up the edifice until the solid columns arrived.