Virgil also creates a shield symbolizing Rome's history in the Iliadic second half Book VIII of the Aeneid. Not that many people read the second half of the Aeneid because it's just not as good as the first half. A lot of classes leave it out. The first half is Virgil's adaption of the Odyssey and is a lot of fun. But like Romeo and Juliet after Mercutio gets killed off, once Dido gets lit (literally), the Aeneid gets boring fast. Like Mercutio, she's the best character.
The poem itself is Auden's 1952 reworking with the Cold War and nuclear annihilation as an implicit backdrop. It reminded me of Simon Weil's Iliad or the Poem of Force.
The burning of dido is certainly memorable but it's rather petty logic to say the second half is bad. It contains much of the interesting criticism of the Roman empire to be. And Aeneid, of course, is by far the most interesting character.
The poem itself is Auden's 1952 reworking with the Cold War and nuclear annihilation as an implicit backdrop. It reminded me of Simon Weil's Iliad or the Poem of Force.