Seamus Heaney used to say that his love of Virgil began with the wistfulness of his Latin teacher, who wished they could have read Book VI of the Aeneid, instead of the mandatory Book IX…

The notion of poetry to make a teacher sigh – this led the young Seamus to read Virgil, to find more and more ties to the ancient poet, to translate his works, to rework them into his own poems, to weave a golden web of inspiration, echoes and shared themes across the millennia. Continue reading →