Juvenal

My overall thoughts on this book: old man shakes hand at clouds and writes angry letters to the newspaper about things he doesn't like.

It really is - Juvenal tends to ramble eloquently on a topic, generally on things he doesn't like (eg, gay folk are bad, but better to be a gay than married). And, his rants are mostly recognizable today (Don't spend money on stuff you can't afford. Outsiders bad and taking jobs and Romans aren't taking back what they are due, etc). A few topics are difficult to read (Satire 6, on woman). As a whole, I really enjoyed reading this.

On style - initially, I had trouble understanding what was happening. Between old traditions and the very English translation of this book, I had to read a few of the satires two or three times, just to catch the nuance. The translation is well done, as far as I can tell. However, I wish there was more focus on the overall setting in the notes. I don't care who Juvenal was writing about, but I really wanted to know about the setting, why were these written, and how were the presented. Bits and pieces of the why were covered in the book, but the majority of the notes were focused on sentence structure (which is meaningless to me) and on individuals mentioned.… (mehr)