Penguin Classics Homer The Iliad

Product Information

To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.

In fact ‘Homer’ may not be a real name but a kind of nickname meaning perhaps ‘the hostage’ or ‘the blind one’. As far as a prose translation of `The Iliad' goes, then, you probably can't do much better than this. Therefore, he describes the Iliadic plot as a sequence of main personages’ ‘object of desire’, and, in doing so, covers the entire plot.In the end, I would think that addressing the shortcomings, in a possible revised edition, would permit the overall notable traits of this book to be more appreciated. The Iliad is the first and the greatest literary achievement of Greek civilization - an epic poem without rival in the literature of the world, and the cornerstone of Western culture. The narrative runs, the dialogue speaks, the military action is clear, and the repetitive epithets become useful text rather than exotic relics.

Jones shows an attractive way of elucidating the plot later, as well, when he introduces a peculiar “way of thinking about a plot” that consists of determining the main characters’ ‘object of desire’ (see, pp. With compassion and humanity, he presents a universal and tragic view of the world, of human life lived under the shadow of suffering and death, set against a vast and largely unpitying divine background. Apollo came against him hidden in thick mist, andstood behind him, and struck his back and broadshoulders with the flat of his hand, so that hiseyes spun round. A poor condition book can still make a good reading copy but is generally not collectible unless the item is very scarce. However, someone that reads the general introduction and not the commentary on every single book, has, at least at this stage, inaccurate information.He has published original poetry, many fictional works, including an academic mystery A LAND OF SLAVES, a memoir RAMSES REBORN, and the illustrated TALES OF THE TROJAN WAR. The Iliad" is the oldest surviving work of Western literature, but the identity - or even the existence - of Homer himself is a complete mystery, with no reliable biographical information having survived. This commitment to jogging the memory is also shown in the detailed notes concerning the personages. Both works attributed to Homer – the Iliad and the Odyssey – are over ten thousand lines long in the original.

Martin Hammond is headmaster of the Tonbridge School and has translated Homer's Iliad for Penguin Classics.Or giving examples like comparing the veracity of a hero's attack to that of a lion attacking a herd of sheep. With regard to this, some of Jones’ remarks seem too absolute if one considers both the difficulty per se of dealing with such a subject and the body of the archaeological and linguistic evidence involved. Homer's work has been spoken of for more than two milleniums and the Trojan/Greek war is recounted with such power and engagement, it still remains a heavily cited and easily reurnable story. A question ritually asked in literary circles is, "Which do you like better, The ILLIAD or The ODYSSEY? Note that the Greek word, brotos, means ‘mortal’ and ‘blood’; and ambrosia means ‘not-mortal, immortal’ or ‘no-blood’.

A stunning new translation of the classic tale of the fall of Troy from one of the world's finest translators. The commentary is characterized by an abundance of details, which ranges from explanations of epithets to geographical and ethnological notes; from descriptions of narratological rules and devices (such as Zielinski’s rules, ring-composition, some peculiar speech-pattern, paradigm-speech, parallel-structure) to the meticulous recording of every simile; from the focusing on typical scene-patterns (such as departure, arming, killings ‘chain reaction’, aristeia, ‘rebuke’) to descriptive notes on the vivid figurative language of both Homer and his characters.

Martin Hammond is headmaster of the Tonbridge School and has translated Homer’s Iliad for Penguin Classics. Jones’ interpretation seems to be based on what is generally considered as being a bard’s misinterpretation of the adjective ambrotos in Il. and to dismiss altogether any sort of historical sense is not as simple as it seems on the basis of Jones’ description.