Product Description

A modern verse translation by Robert Fagles, who also translated Aeschylus' "The Oresteia" and Sophocles' "Three Theban Plays".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50283 in Books
• Published on: 1990-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 704 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780670835102
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Library Journal
Why another Iliad? Just as Homer's work existed most fully in its performance, so the Homeric texts call periodically for new translations. With this in mind, Fagles offers a new verse rendering of the Iliad. Maneuvering between the literal and the literary, he tries with varying degrees of success to suggest the vigor and manner of the original while producing readable poetry in English. Thus, he avoids the anachronizing of Robert Fitzgerald's translation, while being more literal than Richard Lattimore's. Fagles's efforts are accompanied by a long and penetrating introduction by Bernard Knox, coupled with detailed glossary and textual notes.
- T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, Ga.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
The Iliad: Book 1. The Rage Of Achilles
The Iliad: Book 10. Marauding At Night
The Iliad: Book 11. Agamemnon's Day Of Glory
The Iliad: Book 12. The Trojans Storm The Rampart
The Iliad: Book 13. Battling For The Ships
The Iliad: Book 14. Hera Outflanks Zeus
The Iliad: Book 15. The Achaean Armies At Bay
The Iliad: Book 16. Patroclus Fights And Dies
The Iliad: Book 17. Menelaus' Finest Hour
The Iliad: Book 18. The Shield Of Achilles
The Iliad: Book 19. The Champion Arms For Battle
The Iliad: Book 2. The Great Gathering Of The Armies
The Iliad: Book 20. Olympian Gods In Arms
The Iliad: Book 21. Achilles Fights The River
The Iliad: Book 22. The Death Of Hector
The Iliad: Book 23. Funeral Games For Patroclus
The Iliad: Book 24. Achilles And Priam
The Iliad: Book 3. Helen Reviews The Champions
The Iliad: Book 4. The Truce Erupts In War
The Iliad: Book 5. Diomedes Fights The Gods
The Iliad: Book 6. Hector Returns To Troy
The Iliad: Book 7. Ajax Duels With Hector
The Iliad: Book 8. The Tide Of Battle Turns
The Iliad: Book 9. The Embassy To Achilles
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Greek

Customer Reviews

Best first read
I am a retired high school and college instructor who taught the Iliad many times at both levels. The Rouse version was always my translation of choice, and it was enormously successful. The complaints (or halfhearted commendations here) miss the point. Most seem to think that Rouse's "plain English" version is a diminution of the original. All translations are! Rouse merely eliminated many epithets and repetitions (necessary in the meter of the poem and unnecessary in prose). But Rouse is extremely accurate within his chosen limits and the result is a brilliant achievement: a fast-moving text (as is the original) that is colloquial where appropriate, noble sithout being stuffy when nobility is called for; the result is an always ongoing, rapidly moving narrative told in vivid, sinewy prose that simply hurtles you along. It does not attempt to give the more complex reading experience that Fitzgerald and Lattimore and Fagles achieve in their superb verse translations; but these are best reserved for second . . .or 17th readings, once the complex story and relations between characters are mastered. And indeed, none of the more famous verse translations (Pope's is to be avoided: it's a beautiful Augustan poem, not Homer)--none come close to Rouse's focused and frightening rendering of Achilles' on the battlefield, once he goes into action. In short, Rouse is in spirit thoroughly "Homeric"--by turns racy and funny, savage, noble, ultimately tragic as, e.g., the dreadful Victorian versions of Butler and Lang, Leaf, & Myers are not and should be avoided). Even with the small point-size in which the text was set, Rouse's Homer is not just a bargain: it's a treasure bought at a small price.

GET THIS IN AUDIO ONLY!
Lets set a parameter first. The Iliad was designed to be part of an oral history. Slaves told it to Nobles, so anyone who reads it is not actually experiancing it in its original form. Okay? Okay. The Derek Jacobi and Fagles(sp?) team work on this project is inspired. Fagles translation bring all the power, glory, blood, and sinew of the piece to life. This is not some staid, collection of dried flowers, and dusty phrasing. This is passion, power and fury, wrapped in violence anger and blood. This is the Iliad. Derek Jacobi delivers with the depth and feeling that lets you know why his knighthood was long overdue. He knew when to thunder, and when to whisper. His descriptions of feasts had me eating lamb for weeks after listening, and his narratives of battles superceded any modern day action flick. Fagles Created and Jacobi delivered. If you want your children to love greek myths and history get this tape, sit them down in front of the stereo, and watch as Sir Jacobi's voice pours from the speakers, wraps them in a world of imagination and suspense, and carries them from the confines of our techie world of entertainment into the limitless horizons of their mind.

A Most Well Prepared Translation of Homers Epic.
For nearly three thousand years the poems of Homer have thrilled listeners of every culture and epoch. Allusions to The Iliad and The Odyssey are so pervasive in our western culture that they are almost required reading for anyone who wishes to study western literature.
Briefly, The Iliad is the story of the ten year long Trojan War, which climaxes with the destruction of the city of Troy by the Greeks through the deception of the Trojan Horse. Filled with tales of the heroes and gods of ancient Greece, Homer's poems are noted for the masterful use of wonderfully illustrative similes and metaphors, which become all the more wonderful with the understanding that Homer is believed to have been blind!

Translations of Homer which try to adhere to the original poetic structure and be as literal as possible are immensely difficult to read by all but the most focused scholars. Other translations have completley deviated from any resemblance of poetry in an effort to be more accessible to the average reader. Here Mr. Fagles has achieved a translation which is not only easy to read and understand, but which retains the poetic lyricism of the original.

Homer's works should be on the bookshelf of anyone who is interested in the classics, and with this translation you don't have to be a University Professor to appreciate them.