The Iliad (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

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Amazon.com Review:
This groundbreaking English version by Robert Fagles is the most important recent translation of Homer's great epic poem. The verse translation has been hailed by scholars as the new standard, providing an Iliad that delights modern sensibility and aesthetic without sacrificing the grandeur and particular genius of Homer's own style and language. The Iliad is one of the two great epics of Homer, and is typically described as one of the greatest war stories of all time, but to say the Iliad is a war story does not begin to describe the emotional sweep of its action and characters: Achilles, Helen, Hector, and other heroes of Greek myth and history in the tenth and final year of the Greek siege of Troy.

Seller's description:
This timeless poem-more than 2,700 year old-still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amid devastation and destruction as it moves inexorably to its wrenching, tragic conclusion. Readers of this epic poem will be gripped by the finely tuned translation and enlightening introduction. Translated by Robert Fagles Introduction and Notes by Bernard

Features:

ISBN13: 9780140275360
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product details:

Item number (ASIN): 0140275363
Author: Homer
Creator: Bernard Knox, Robert Fagles
Dewey Decimal Number: 883.01
ISBN: 0140275363
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 704
Package Dimensions: 190 x 550 x 830 (hundredths-inches)
Publication Date: November 1, 1998
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Binding: Paperback

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Average Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Rating:

- the iliad
a beautiful translation with a driving pace that pulls the reader forward from beginning to the end of the epic tale.

Rating:

- The story of the Trojan War
I read the Robert Fagles edition of the Iliad. I read it after reading the Robert Fitzgerald translation of "The Odyssey". This book is very important. It was Alexander the Great's favorite book. The subject of the book is the Trojan War. The book has various gruesome descriptions of battles. The book ends with the death of Hector. Unfortunately the story behind the fall of Troy is not given. The sequel, "The Odyssey", gives brief references to the Trojan Horse and also references the death of Achilles (Odysseus meets him in the Underworld). The Iliad is really long and at times gets dull with the endless descriptions of infantrymen killing each other. It is still well written and is essential reading for a knowledge of ancient Greek mythology. The book addresses the sadness behind war.

Rating:

- War, lust, greed, gore... what more do you want?
The Iliad proves that some things don't sour with age. Though more than 2,500 years old the story, its archetypal characters and its poignant depiction of the flings of fortune can still mesmerize the modern attention span with its less than nanosecond tolerance. This long poem floods with violence, glory, agony, victory, sorrow and even wrenching gore. Some battle scenes are outright repulsive. What more could a modern sensibility want? Sex? Well, the Iliad has some of that too, but nothing explicit (Hera's rather amusing seduction of Zeus in Book 14 stands out). All in all, this ancient epic tale reads, for the most part, like a thriller, accessible to the age of video games and YouTube. It's no stuffy pedantic tale wheedling out platitudes, it paints a rather brutal picture of life's travails. The scheming and power hungry Gods of Olympus oversee it all. They cause just as much trouble for each other as for the humans who bow to them (with some exceptions; Aphrodite gets lashed at by a bold mortal). In their world, fickle senseless fate strikes people down with savagery. A tension between free will and determinism also lingers. Do the Gods predestine all? Or do humans act from pure willing? No one knows the answer to such questions even today, but the Iliad showcases how the ancient Greek's framed such dilemmas. And then there's Achilles, the blustering hero of the entire work. For twenty books this seething and legendary mass broods over Agamemnon's taking of his favorite woman, Briseis. This single affront provides the soil for almost intolerable tension. When Achilles finally takes to the battlefield the tension explodes into a furious bloodbath. He even takes on the river Xanthus. As a superhero, he's closer to the all too human Batman than to the inhuman Superman. Achilles sulks (in fact, he sulks more than he fights), he wails, he mourns. Most importantly, he forgives and repents (admittedly with some immortal urging). He's more than your average slashing berserker. He's multidimensional, complex, admirable and sometimes repugnant. He embodies the Achean ethos as well as the moral framework for the entire poem. As with most complex heroes, morality remains somewhat ambiguous. And honor and love of homeland above all rules the day. This rings true for the entire piece. Harsh reality, with some immortal magic mixed in, permeates the ancient, but still very modern, Iliad. Robert Fagles' facile translation makes for beyond brisk reading. One can stop to appreciate the poetry and meter or simply read it straight through and follow the tumultuous narrative. Neither method will disappoint. Of course other exegetical perspectives exist. Apart from serving up an amazing tale, the Iliad also serves as history, in it being one of the oldest extant tales. Bernard Knox's comprehensive introduction covers some of the debate about the story's historicity. The mystery only adds to the experience. Did Troy exist? Did the Trojan war occur? And were the Iliad's characters real people writ large? What did Helen of Troy, assuming she existed, look like and did she regret her abandonment of Menelaus as she claims throughout the tale? Had this story occurred in our current age of information we would have all of the answers but none of the beguiling mystery that permeates the stories of our distant ancestors. And that mood of mystery, struggle and fate surrounding the story and its wispy author, Homer, help keep the Iliad on numerous reading lists. But what will always keep it coming back are the same thing that keeps all great books in print: a great story with unforgettable characters. The Iliad has both in droves.

Rating:

- The edition is fine, the reviews a complete mess
Amazon has cobbled together every review of every translation of the Iliad in their posession, and the book being reviewed is not even a translation at all, but is in the original greek (one must suppose - they never do come right out and say so, but glancing at the first page such appears to be the case).

Rating:

- On the world in one book and Fagles over Lombardo
I have several points to make in this review. The first is to explain why I recommend the Fagles translation over that of Lombardo. The choice of translation is at one and the same time easy, personal and fraught with consequence. It is easy because all the translations that I am familiar with (Fitzgerald, Fagles and Lombardo) are excellent and have their own excellencies. It is personal because because I believe it is largely a matter of individual aesthetic. But it is fraught with consequence. Let me explain that last part. In Homeric Moments, Eva Braan points out the passage in Book 18 when Achilles first talks to Thetis after hearing that Patrocles has been killed by Hector. Fagles (p. 470, Line 96) translates the line as "I've lost him". Lombardo parses the line as "And I killed him" (Lombardo, p. 357, Line 86). Braan suggests that the alternate to lost should be "destroyed" (Braan, p. 11). This crux epitomizes my loss at not knowing Greek and having to read translations. I lose out on those moments, those flashes of shifting insight that knowing that the word I am reading can imply loss, guilt and transgression all at the same time. Knowing that there are trade-offs of insight to win or lose on the choice of a translation, I recommend you read several. Pick a main translation. And at the moments of consequence in the story, consult the others. Lombardo is flat out better at making Book 2(the catalogue of ships) not only readable but purposeful. Homer in that one chapter is giving all the islands, all the kingdoms and cities of Greece a place in the national epic of the country. He is giving everyone in Greece a hero to look back on as their own. But in general I find Lombardo to be, for lack of a better term, coarser. And, I think it has a lot to do with his methodology. I read his intro as saying that he works his translation out over the coarse of time by performing it (fair enough since we are reading Homer, the singer of epics). But, as a result of those readings perhaps, his translation has passages that are real clunkers. For example, I laughed out loud when I read this: "Well let me tell you something. I guarantee That if I ever catch you running on at the mouth again As you were just now, my name isn't Odysseus..." (Lombardo, p.28, Line 279-281) I read those line and what I see is young Marlon Brando in The Wild Ones not Odysseus. Compare Fagles: "I tell you this, so help me it's the truth: If I catch you again, blithering on this way, let Odysseus' head be wrenched off his shoulders" (Fagles, p. 108, Line 301-303). That line count is also an issue- Lombardo's methodology leads him to leave out words, phrases and lines because they are unneccessary to performance. I can't go with that. I could go on but I think you see my argument. To sum up: I don't read/speak a bit of Greek. My ear when reading aloud leads me to prefer the Fagles translation but the Lombardo is a valuable adjunct to that reading. Since both translations are also interpretations, to read them both is to probably get a little closer to Homer. And, by the way, both contain useful introductions although I think Knox's intro to Fagles' translation is better than Murnaghan's to Lombardo's translation. Finally, why should you care? I have hinted at it in my review title and my remark on the catalogue of ships. Homer's poetic style reveals so much more than an epic on force or whatever the critical summation de jour is. He creates a world. Not just a world at war but through his similes a world of crafts, work, weddings, births, murders, kinships, friendships, of gods, of monsters, of countries and of history. Toward the end of the book, the God Hephaestus creates for Achilles a new shield. Homer describes in detail the working on the shield, the two cities, one at war, one at peace and the whole universe that surrounds them. It is the perfect simile for the effect of Homer's poem as a whole. The other reason you should read this book is the central conflict between Hector and Achilles. Both men are doomed and know it. Both are aware that the success of their side is dependent on them. Achilles is the more god-like but Hector is the better man, the more humane human being. You should care about reading about these two because in their conflict, they are tracing out what is was for the men of ancient Greece to live and to die. And their story continues to carry the weight of the ways that they faced their fate down to our own time. Which brings me to my final reason for preferring Fagles over Lombardo. Brando in The Wild Ones was a marvel. There is nothing wrong at all with Brando from The Wild Ones. Brando from On the Waterfront was even better. But Brando is not Hector, he is not Achilles, he is not Odysseus or Diomedes or Great Ajax. To my ears, all too often Lombardo give us Brando. Fagles gives us the Greeks. At least, to my ears and my soul. Try the two of them out and let me know how you feel. And if anyone wants to argue the merits of different translations in the comments, have at me.