The Iliad
Published on 4. February 2016
608 pages
978-1-4735-2274-9 (ISBN)
Description
Read this stunning translation of Homer's great war epic, the legendary tale of honour, love, loss and revenge during the fall of the city of Troy.
High on Olympus, Zeus and the assembled deities look down on the world of men, to the city of Troy where a bitter and bloody war has dragged into its tenth year, and a quarrel rages between a legendary warrior and his commander. Greek ships decay, men languish, exhausted, and behind the walls of Troy a desperate people await the next turn of fate.
This is the Iliad: an ancient story of enduring power; magnetic characters defined by stirring and momentous speeches; a panorama of human lives locked in a heroic struggle beneath a mischievous or indifferent heaven. Above all, this is a tale of the devastation, waste and pity of war.
Caroline Alexander's virtuoso translation captures the rhythms and energy of Homer's original Greek while making the text as accessible as possible to a modern reader, accompanied by extensive extra material to provide a background to the poem.
The result of 3,000 years of story-telling, Homer's epic tale of the fall of Troy has resonated with every age and every human conflict: this is the Iliad at its most electrifying and vital.
High on Olympus, Zeus and the assembled deities look down on the world of men, to the city of Troy where a bitter and bloody war has dragged into its tenth year, and a quarrel rages between a legendary warrior and his commander. Greek ships decay, men languish, exhausted, and behind the walls of Troy a desperate people await the next turn of fate.
This is the Iliad: an ancient story of enduring power; magnetic characters defined by stirring and momentous speeches; a panorama of human lives locked in a heroic struggle beneath a mischievous or indifferent heaven. Above all, this is a tale of the devastation, waste and pity of war.
Caroline Alexander's virtuoso translation captures the rhythms and energy of Homer's original Greek while making the text as accessible as possible to a modern reader, accompanied by extensive extra material to provide a background to the poem.
The result of 3,000 years of story-telling, Homer's epic tale of the fall of Troy has resonated with every age and every human conflict: this is the Iliad at its most electrifying and vital.
Reviews / Votes
Virtuoso * New York Review of Books * Caroline Alexander's Iliad is miraculous. It has the rhythms and even the lineation of the original Homeric text. Its language conveys the precise meaning of the Greek in a sinewy yet propulsive style that drives the reader inexorably forward. In my judgement, this new translation is far superior to the familiar and admired work of Lattimore, Fitzgerald and Fagles Of the many new translations of Homer's poem that have come out in the past two or three years, perhaps the most highly readable is Caroline Alexander's. Thought to be the first woman to have Englished the poem, Alexander embraces Matthew Arnold's four essential Homeric qualities: rapidity, plainness of style, simplicity of ideas and nobility of manner, in lines that ebb and flow with the tide of battle. The book wears its learning lightly, the introduction pitching the Iliad as the ultimate anti-war poem. * Times Literary Supplement * The Homeric Iliad originates from a rich tradition of performing song. It was meant to be heard. True to the living word of the original Greek, Caroline Alexander's new translation invites us to engage directly with this tradition. When I read her verses I can almost hear the music of Homeric performance. Caroline Alexander has done admirably in rendering the meaning of the Homeric text faithfully and suitably dignified language. The format gives a genuine sense of reading a verse epic. Her line-numbers match the Greek, which will make this version convenient for use by college teachers and students This powerful and readable version of the Iliad is modern without sacrificing the accuracy, energy, or the seriousness of the original. It is a toss-up between Alexander's translation and Lattimore's version * Library Journal * This powerful and readable version of the Iliad is modern without sacrificing the accuracy, energy, or the seriousness of the original. It is a toss-up between Alexander's translation and Lattimore's version * Library Journal * There is an epic poise to this new translation, whose varied line lengths ebb and flow with the tides of battle... Translucent, readable and recitable. * Spectator *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Random House (Digital)
File size
4,09 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-4735-2274-9 (9781473522749)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Persons
Caroline Alexander is the author of seven books of non-fiction including the international bestsellers The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition and The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty. A contributing writer for National Geographic, Alexander has also written for the New Yorker, Smithsonian and Granta among other publications. Alexander's latest books are Lost Gold of the Dark Ages: War, Treasure and the Mystery of the Saxons and The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of the Iliad and the Trojan War. Between 1982 and 1985, Alexander established a department of Classics at the University of Malawi, in central-east Africa.
