![]() ![]() Though this unlikely heroine receives only token mention in Virgil’s original, Le Guin brings her to vibrant life as a dutiful virgin whose world is circumscribed by daily routines who is the uncooperative cynosure of several suitors’ eyes and who eventually distances herself from the misrule of her stepson Ascanius (Aeneas’s successor), biding her time until the new metropolis of Rome is made worthy of its intrepid founder. But omens decree otherwise, and Lavinia weds Trojan warrior-adventurer Aeneas, a bereaved and conflicted husband, son and father who will, over the years, earn the initially reluctant Lavinia’s undying respect and love. ![]() ![]() The story is that of the eponymous princess of Latium (a royal city before Rome existed), promised by her parents, King Latinus and Queen Amata, to neighboring Rutilian king Turnus (who is Amata’s nephew). Le Guin ( Powers, 2007, etc.) departs from her award-winning fantasy and science-fiction novels to amplify a story told only glancingly in Virgil’s epic The Aeneid. ![]()
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