Talk:Lavinia (novel)

A more nuanced definition of "translate"
Le Guin tells stories, not poems. I suspect that her claim that this is a translation probably relates more to the translation of a poetical story by Virgil in ancient times into a modern prose story by herself, not a literal translation from Greek to English. Translations from Greek to English already exist and are difficult to read because a language reflects the culture in which it exists and our culture is radically different than ancient Greek culture. FatBear1 (talk) 23:30, 1 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Le Guin has written several books of poetry; she definitely writes poems. And the Aeneid was in Latin, not Greek. Le Guin challenged herself to read it in the original Latin, and did so. But no, Lavinia is not a literal translation at all. I think that paragraph in the article may be original research, and there needs to be a citation of the statement attributed to Le Guin that it's a translation. I can't find my copy right now to check. — Gorthian (talk) 01:14, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

"Lavinia, a minor character in Virgil's Aeneid"
That statement can be very misleading, especially to a reader encountering the story for the first time, for it begs the entire question around which Lavinia the novel revolves.

It all depends on how you define "minor character":

1. Minor in treatment, or

2. Minor in importance.

Given that a long, bloody, and historically fateful war was fought, essentially, over Lavinia, the description of which war comprises the entire second half of Vergil's epic, it is very difficult to call Lavinia a character of minor importance.

And yet, Vergil has very little if anything to say about Lavinia herself, and she never speaks so much as a single word in the entire Aeneid.

This is the dichotomy (contradiction) that Lavinia the novel was, by all indications, written to resolve, the gaping lacuna that its author endeavored to fill.

Toddcs (talk) 19:51, 11 November 2023 (UTC)