SOURCE: Lewis, A.-M. Review of Aratus: Phaenomena, edited and translated by Douglas Kidd. Phoenix 53, nos. 3-4 (fall-winter 1999): 371-74.

In the following review, Lewis evaluates Douglas Kidd's prose translation of the Phaenomena, emphasizing its status as the new standard critical edition of the poem in English.

Douglas Kidd is Emeritus Professor of Classics at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. He was first inspired to undertake an edition of the Phaenomena of Aratus over thirty years ago (as he mentions on page xi of his preface) and has written, since 1961, three articles dealing with Aratus and the Phaenomena.¹

Kidd's edition of the Phaenomena of Aratus will greatly assist scholars who do research on Aratus and on Hellenistic poetry, and it will also serve as an excellent introduction to Aratus for the non-specialist. Kidd's edition supplements, updates, and consolidates the four editions that have been in common use...