Reading Groups

The Aeneid and the Story of Rome with Jeanna Lucci-Canapari

4 Sessions Tuesdays, 6:30 pm EDT - 8:00 pm EDT March 25 to May 20, 2025

The Center for Fiction

The ‘With Books’ option includes the titles required for this group at an additional 10% discount from our Bookstore.

Meeting Dates:
3/25, 4/22, 5/6, 5/20
In Person at The Center for Fiction

The Aeneid, Virgil’s classic epic poem, was first published in 19 BCE during the reign of the Emperor Augustus, and was widely received as a founding story of Rome, a continuation of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and a confirmation of the legitimacy of the Caesars. In this group, we will examine the Aeneid as a poem, a political document, and an enduring influence on literature in the Western canon, such as Beowulf and Dante’s Inferno. We will read a 2021 translation by Shadi Bartsch, but also look at sections written by other translators, in particular the Irish poet Seamus Heaney’s translation of Book VI, which describes Aeneas’s famous descent into the Underworld.

What to read in advance of the first meeting: Participants should have read the Introduction to the Bartsch translation and Books 1 through 3.

What to expect from this reading group: I will be ready with historical context, and short, supporting readings, but the course will be guided by the interests and questions of the participants.

Reading List:

Virgil’s The Aeneid translated by Shari Bartsch
Aeneid Book VI translated by Seamus Heaney

Capacity: 20

Led by

Jeanna Lucci-Canapari

Jeanna Lucci-Canapari

Jeanna Lucci-Canapari is freelance writer, and received her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at University of King’s College (Halifax, Nova Scotia), and is currently working on a memoir centered on the intersection of truth and mythology in an Italian immigrant family. Her freelance work appears mainly in Yale University publications, and her personal essays have appeared in Salon, Creative Nonfiction, Allegory Ridge and Off Assignment. She holds a BA in English from Columbia University and though she currently lives in New Haven, she is a former and forever Brooklynite.

About this series

Reading Groups

Whether you’re looking to catch up on great novels or you’re interested in exploring a new writer or literary period, our reading groups offer high-level literary discussion led by experts in the field.

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