Is Anybody Out There? - 9780756406196

A Companion to Vergil's Aeneid and its Tradition presents a collection of original interpretive essays by an international team of renowned scholars. Topics covered include Vergil's handling of sources; the history of Vergil reception in literature; and the enduring influence of Vergilian themes in prose, music, and art. The problem of translating the Aeneid into English and other languages is also covered, along with a survey of more recent translations into non-Western languages and their reception. Thought-provoking and accessible, A Companion to Vergil's Aeneid and its Tradition draws out wounderful new insights and complexities from the works of a poet whose voice continues to resonate after 2,000 years.

Why is it that, in such a vast cosmos. with hundreds of billions of stars in this galaxy alone, and no doubt billions of Earth-like planets orbiting them, we have found no evidence of intelligent alien life? No evidence that aliens have ever visited Earth (other than discredited UFO mythology), no detectable signals in all our SETI searches with radio telescopes...?

The stories in this anthology offer intriguing explanations for this enigma, looking seriously or comically at solutions. Is intelligent life a fluke, arising only once or twice in the universe's long history? Does intelligence arise frequently, but with gulfs of time and distance keeping technological civilizations irretrievably apart? Do such civilizations inevitably implode or self-destruct within a few hundred years? Is our definition of intelligence fatally subjective? Are aliens among us right now, unseen? Are there aliens everywhere, but determined not to let us notice them? These are just some of the possibilities explored in---Is Anybody Out There?