One of the first operas based on the story of the Aeneid was the English composer Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (1688). The opera is famous for its aria "Dido's Lament" ('When I am laid in earth'), of which the first line of the melody is inscribed on the wall by the door of the Purcell Room, a concert hall in London.
The story of the Aeneid was made into the grand opera Les Troyens (1856–1858) by the French composer Hector Berlioz.
The Aeneid was the basis for the 1962 Italian film The Avenger and the 1971–1972 television serial Eneide.
In the musical Spring Awakening, based on the play of the same title by Frank Wedekind, schoolboys study the Latin text, and the first verse of Book 1 is incorporated into the number "All That's Known".
Ursula Le Guin's 2008 novel Lavinia is a free prose retelling of the last six books of the Aeneid narrated by and centred on Aeneas' Latin wife Lavinia, a minor character in the epic poem. It carries the action forward to the crowning of Aeneas' younger son Silvius as king of Latium.
A seventeenth-century popular broadside ballad also appears to recount events from books 1–4 of the Aeneid, focusing mostly on the relationship between Aeneas and Dido. The ballad, "The Wandering Prince of Troy", presents many similar elements as Virgil's epic, but alters Dido's final sentiments toward Aeneas, as well as presenting an interesting end for Aeneas himself.[63]
Parodies and travesties
A number of parodies and travesties of the Aeneid have been made.[64]
- One of the earliest was written in Italian by Giovanni Batista Lalli in 1635, titled L'Eneide travestita del Signor Gio.
- A French parody by Paul Scarron became famous in France in the mid-17th century, and spread rapidly through Europe, accompanying the growing French influence. Its influence was especially strong in Russia.
- Charles Cotton's work Scarronides included a travestied Aeneid.
- In 1791, the Russian poet N. P. Osipov published Eneida travestied (Russian: Виргилиева Энеида, вывороченная наизнанку, lit. 'Vergil's Aeneid, turned inside out').
- In 1798, Eneida, a Ukrainian mock-heroic burlesque poem, was written by Ivan Kotliarevsky. It is considered to be the first literary work published wholly in the modern Ukrainian language.[65] His epic poem was adapted into an animated feature film of the same name, in 1991, by Ukranimafilm.[66]
- Some time between 1812 and the 1830s, the Belarusian poet Vikientsi Ravinski wrote the burlesque poem Eneida inside-out (Belarusian: Энеіда навыварат).[67] His work was inspired by the Russian and Ukrainian parodies.
