Braund on the Aeneid on iTunes

I am listening to the fascinating lectures given by Susanna Braund on Virgil's Aeneid at Stanford and now available on iTunes U. The first is an introduction to the course and epic poetry, the rest then proceed through the poem in three-book blocks. I like the way that it is a real class in action, so you hear students asking questions, and she's interacting with them, trying to remember the dates of the publication of books, welcoming (very) late students into the class. She's a super scholar, and I've just seen (though not yet read) her Latin Literature (Routledge, 2001), and I intend to read it. I think that it will be a good introduction and it will certainly be an appropriate piece on a medieval reading list. Her recent translation of Juvenal and Persius for the Loeb Classical Library is very good, and I'm dying to see her new edition of Seneca's De clementia (OUP, 2008).

By the way, I just picked up a copy of Miriam Griffin's Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (Clarendon Press, 1992 [1976]) in the Oxfam bookshop on Parliament Street (Dublin) and cannot wait to read it (and for the criminal price of €6 too, I almost felt guilty...). I checked out a couple of JRS and CP reviews and enjoyed their snippiness, calling her "Ms Griffin", when the book was based on a doctoral dissertation, and suggesting that she's a bit emotional. Men unused to women in the academy, I suspect.

I'm next going to read Sebastian Barry's new novel, The Secret Scripture and will post shortly on it.