Michael Roberts’s goal is to produce a readable and accurate translation of Fortunatus’s Latin, printed with some changes from Friedrich Leo’s MGH edition. His versions of the poems are in prose, and literal rather than free. Since roughly half of Fortunatus’s poems fall under the categories of epithalamium, consolatio, encomium, epitaph, hymn, or ecclesiastical commemoration, this approach energizes a volume of many strengths.
Readers with some or no Latin now have incomparable interpretive tools to ponder the poetic riches of Venantius Fortunatus. This translation is a monument in the history of Latin letters and to Roberts’s singular place in its ongoing articulation.
Joseph Pucci
Speculum
