Penguin Classics Homer The Iliad

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Fitzgerald has solved virtually every problem that has plagued translators of Homer. The narrative runs, the dialogue speaks, the military action is clear, and the repetitive epithets become useful text rather than exotic relics.”– Atlantic Monthly boldface: Cheers. I'm aware it is a bit too ambitious and stereotyped to describe translations with just a word, but wanted to make it brief. The Iliad contains few cases of diseases, the main example being the description of a plague raging in the Achaean camp, which starts the narration. The plague is caused by offense to a divinity and as such can only be remedied by offering adequate reparation to the gods. Battlefield injuries, on the other hand, are dealt with more pragmatically. 32 Authors have noted that “one of the traits of Homeric medicine is that it is, by and large, a secular (i.e. human) activity,” 33 although a few instances of wounds healed directly by the gods are described.

The pentameter has less space unfortunately: it contains 10 syllables whereas the dactylic hexameter can have anywhere between 12 and 18. This means there is less space to convey the message of the original, meaning the translator has to slash parts to adhere to the original line spacing. Yet though it is always metrically regular, it never becomes monotonous; its internal variety guarantees that. This regularity imposed on variety is Homer's great metrical secret. the strongest weapon in his poetic arsenal. The long line, which no matter how it varies in the opening and middle always ends in the same way, builds up its hypnotic effect in book after book, imposing on things and men and gods the same pattern, presenting in a rhythmic microcosm the wandering course to a fixed end which is the pattern of the rage of Achilles and the travels of Odysseus. of all natural phenomena and all human destinies. The meter itself demands a special vocabulary, for many combinations of long and short syllables that are common in the spoken language cannot be admitted to the line-any word with three consecutive short syllables, for example, any word with one short syllable between two longs. This difficulty was met by choosing freely among the many variations of pronunciation and prosody afforded by Greek dialectal differences; the epic language is a mixture of dialects. Under a light patina Upon the deep the while he strove
To save himself from death and bring
His comrades home.
Of these things now, The Iliad is one episode among many in Homer’s epics, and it may have been assumed that listeners of the original spoken performance would be familiar with all the players in this war. It is argued by some, including British scholar M.L. West, that The Iliad has had pieces added to it over the years. Stephen Mitchell follows West’s scholarship and strips out the extra passages, a notion expanded upon in a review of Mitchell’s translation by classicist Daniel Mendelsohn in The New Yorker (2011). Mitchell’s translation may be the most readable, the most listenable one in English. It is also the shortest. Mitchell also shortens the lines in English so that they have speed and momentum for an impressive delivery.Beginning with a table of contents and a short Preface (p. 7), this book contains a List of Technicalities (pp. 9-10), a General Introduction to the whole Iliad, divided into five paragraphs (pp. 11-43), a line-by-line commentary on each book of the poem, based on three selected translations (pp. 45-323), an Appendix, entitled The ‘Truce’ in Book 3 (pp. 325-327), a rather extensive Bibliography, a useful Index of the subjects discussed. See, e.g., W. Donlan, The Structure of Authority in the Iliad, in “Arethusa” 12 (1979), pp. 51-70; V. Di Benedetto, Nel laboratorio di Omero, Torino 1994, pp. 349-358. Thanks a lot for the tip. I'll try Verity's as soon as I can (so many books...). I'm always up for an Iliad re-read. Overall this is a highly professional production, to be seriously considered for textbook use in the classroom. Menes" on the other hand signifies a specific kind of rage, a divine rage, the intensity of which is always associated with the gods (like when Apollo shoots his arrows), but never with humans; ie a word reserved for Gods.

E.V. Rieu's acclaimed translation of The Iliad was one of the first titles published in Penguin Classics, and now has classic status itself. For this edition, Rieu's text has been revised, and now a new introduction and notes by Peter Jones complement the original introduction. Later in the commentary he does give some details about both food and blood, but there is something wrong. Commenting on 5. 340 (p. 112), he writes:As stated in the Preface, the purpose is to provide those reading the Iliad for the first time with a useful tool enabling them to understand and appreciate the basic characteristics of what is considered to be the first masterpiece of our Western Culture, through a detailed commentary based on the most widely used translations, namely: E. V. Rieu, Homer: The Iliad (Harmondsworth: Penguin 2003), revised and updated by P. Jones himself; M. Hammond, Homer: The Iliad (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1987); and R. Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer (Chicago 1951). Although intentionally limited in scope, this book nevertheless discusses “the main issues that lie at the heart” of the Iliad, be these issues related to the problematic genesis of the poem, to its diction or narratological devices, or to the well-known dialectic between poetry and history. These issues constitute the main contents of the General Introduction. To comment further, especially in light of my third criteria above, I have to say that the version of The Odyssey I find most pleasurable to read is one that is flatly rejected by most scholars and critics today, Herbert Bates' school edition in verse. It is unfortunately abridged; that is one of the reasons it isn't seriously considered today. The other reason is that it is versified in iambic tetrameter (horrors! not even good English iambic pentameter, let alone Homer's "rolling" hexameters). To most, that makes it NOT a "faithful" translation. you fat-wrapped thigh-bones of bulls and goats, grant this my prayer: may the Danaans pay for my tears with your arrows.’