Wordsworth’s Translation of Aeneid 1–3 and the Earlier Tradition of English Translations of Virgil

William Wordsworth’s translation of the first three books of the Aeneid are the focus of this chapter. As a major translation project by a major English poet, this work of Wordsworth can be compared with the Aeneid of Dryden (with whom he competes) and with Pope’s Iliad. Hardie considers Wordsworth’s undertaking not only within the longer history of English translations of the Aeneid, but also within the larger history of English poetry. In his anxious literary competition with Dryden, Wordsworth chooses the rhyming couplet for his translation to show how a different verse movement and vocabulary can produce another version of the classic English Aeneid.