Although it is aimed squarely at linguists and narratologists, readers of any sort who are deeply engaged with Virgil's narrative style and structure will find that A.'s volume repays close reading. A. begins with a very fine summary of scholarship on Virgil's use of tense while at the same time showing her reader that this is, in fact, the first comprehensive study of tense in the Aeneid. A.'s approach to the material is primarily descriptive with an eye to organisation and classification. This complex process of sorting means that A. has done much of the difficult work already and has therefore paved the way for other scholars to determine why Virgil slips between tenses. Classification, however, is not her sole aim; A. also presents arguments for a single semantic value of the present and perfect tenses, for reading the imperfect as a frame rather than a background tense and for tense as a controlling force in the style and structure of the epic. The volume is organised into chapters by tense (praesens, perfectum, imperfectum, plusquamperfectum, future tenses, historical infinitive) with an introduction, instructive conclusion that cuts across tense to look at features of discourse modes, and an excellent methodological chapter.

The methodological chapter, ‘Latin Tenses in Narrative Texts’, is particularly insightful and contextualised well with references to previous scholarship – so much so, in fact, that it might be a useful introduction for graduate students or advanced undergraduates on how to use narratology and linguistics to explicate a text. It is at any rate a good overview of the state of the field, which is useful in its own right. In this chapter we find that A. will focus on what tenses actually do in Virgil's narrative (i.e. how they present information) rather than what we generally say that tenses are supposed to do in a narrative. She explains how a set of discourse modes (narrative, description, report and information) drawn from the work of linguist C. Smith (Modes of Discourse. The Local Structure of Texts [2003]) maps onto the retrospective and pseudo-simultaneous narrative states of affairs with which most Classicists are already quite familiar. Sequences are then built from two or more consecutive narrative elements in the same discourse mode and from the same temporal vantage point, and it is these sequences that Virgil can then manipulate to shape the structure, flow and emotional content of his epic (pp. 39–41). The result of the combination of narrative states of affairs, discourse modes and temporal vantage points (relationship to the base, as A. refers to it) provides a sophisticated language for describing the precise way in which Virgil presents information (p. 32) or for ‘unraveling the interaction between the semantic value of a Latin tense form and the context in which it occurs’ (p. 41).

A. combines the discourse modes with the concept of the base, i.e. the temporal vantage point, or ‘now’, from which one speaks, which consists of either the time of narration (the actual time of speaking) or reference time (time spoken about that is distinct from the time of speaking). The modes and the base together form a complex classification system for analysing the use of verbs and the information they present in the Aeneid. This system allows A. to argue that each tense in the Aeneid has a single semantic value and that the distinctions sometimes drawn around types of present or perfect tense verbs are in fact the result of differences in discourse mode and therefore interpretative differences rather than semantic differences. The present tense, for example, ‘is contemporaneous with the moment of speaking or … communicative situation’, which puts her at odds with those who argue that the present is a ‘“temporal wild card” (joker temporal)’ (p. 46; S. Mellet et al., Grammaire fondamentale du latin: le signifíe du verbe [1994]). The perfect tense likewise does not have two meanings for A., but a single semantic value that ‘leaves room for several interpretations, among which [sic] the “present perfect” and the “narrative perfect”’ (p. 90). The imperfect tense ‘expresses contemporaneity with a past orientation time’ wherein its iterative, durative, imperfective and conative associations are functions of its context and interpretation rather than facets of its meaning (p. 134). The historical infinitive ‘merely indicates the existence of a state of affairs’, and ‘the context of every historical infinitive provides an indication of the time in which the state of affairs is valid’, in an inversion of Sznajder's argument (p. 214) (L. Sznajder, ‘Sur la concurrence entre presents historique et infinitifs de narration chez les historiens latins’, in H. Rósen [ed.], Aspects of Latin. Papers from the Seventh International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Jerusalem, April 1993 [1996], pp. 307–21). A.'s argument for the historical infinitive showing different perspectives in a scene (pp. 226–30) is convincing. She also argues for the imperfect as a means to shift perspectives within a scene, arguing for the term ‘frame’ rather than ‘background’ to describe the tense's role especially in a retrospective narrative (pp. 34, 135–54, 249–50).

The work of H. Pinkster features so prominently in the citations and in the underpinnings to many of A.'s ideas that the volume might be viewed as a systematic test of Pinkster's claims directed at a single piece of literature. While this kind of test is still uncommon in the humanities, the social sciences find them quite useful, and we would do well to take note. The book both validates Pinkster's propositions and succeeds as a contribution on its own merits. Not only is the sheer volume of information collected in the tables and figures impressive, but the close reading of various passages to elucidate the uses of tense forms is also noteworthy.

Moreover, A. does not shy away from the difficulties of creating a system that will explain every form. For example, she reveals that there are both atypical uses of the narrative and descriptive modes in the present tense in the sequences about the Carthaginians busily building their city (Aen. 1.421–9) and sitting idle (4.86–9) (pp. 65–9). Descriptions where it is difficult to establish whether the base is the time of narration (Virgil's time in this case) or reference time (the present tense of the story world within the epic) (pp. 69–73; cf. K. Quinn, ‘The Tempo of Virgilian Epic’, in Quinn [ed.], Latin Explorations [1963], p. 83) and other cases where the use of tenses does not fit neatly into her boxes are also given admirable attention.

A. expertly brings together concepts from narratology and cognitive linguistics in an application to a text that is central to the Classical canon. The result is a volume that will surely become a work of reference for any scholar interested in arguing for a particular interpretation of tense not only in epic but also in other genres of Latin literature, as the framework established here would lend itself to many other inquiries. It would be worth further examining the patterns A. mentions in her concluding chapter, for example retrospective narratives at the end of speeches (pp. 251–2) and at the beginning and end of scenes (pp. 252–6). The role of verb tense in creating a subtle and complex spatiotemporal fabric in Virgil's epic is expertly handled in a dense volume that provides much food for thought.