The Iliad

Author Homer
Cover Design or Artwork by Coralie Bickford-Smith
Translated by E. V. Rieu
Hardcover
$25.00 US
5.33"W x 8.05"H x 1.36"D  
On sale Nov 24, 2015 | 560 Pages | 9780141394657
Grades 9-12 + AP/IB
Homer’s monumental epic set at the end of the Trojan War explores love, heroism, and the intricate relationship between gods and mortals—now in a beautiful clothbound hardcover edition designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith.

The Iliad is the first and the greatest literary achievement of Greek civilization—the cornerstone of Western culture and an epic poem without rival in world literature. The story centers on the critical events in the last year of the Trojan War, which lead to Achilleus’s killing of Hektor and the fall of Troy. But Homer's theme is not simply war or heroism. With compassion and humanity, he presents a universal and tragic view of the world: human life lived under the shadow of suffering and death set against a vast and largely unpitying divine background.

This edition presents Penguin Classics founder E. V. Rieu’s lively translation of Homer’s great epic.

Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Homer was a Greek poet, recognized as the author of the great epics, the Iliad, the story of the siege of Troy, and the Odyssey, the tale of Ulysses’s wanderings. View titles by Homer
The IliadForeword
Introduction
Introduction to the 1950 Edition
Notes on this Revision
The Main Characters
Further Reading
Maps:
1. A reconstruction of Homer's imagined battlefields
2. The Troad
3. Trojan places and contingents
4. Homeric Greece
5. Greek contingents at Troy

Preliminaries

The Iliad
1. Plague and Wrath
2. A Dream, a Testing and the Catalogue of Ships
3. A Duel and a Trojan View of the Greeks
4. The Oath is Broken and Battle Joined
5. Diomedes' Heroics
6. Hector and Andromache
7. Ajax Fights Hector
8. Hector Triumphant
9. The Embassy to Achilles
10. Diomedes and Odysseus: The Night Attack
11. Achilles Takes Notice
12. Hector Storms the Wall
13. The Battle at the Ships
14. Zeus Outmanoeuvred
15. The Greeks at Bay
16. The Death of Patroclus
17. The Struggle Over Patroclus
18. Achilles' Decision
19. The Feud Ends
20. Achilles on the Rampage
21. Achilles Fights the River
22. The Death of Hector
23. The Funeral and the Games
24. Priam and Achilles

Appendices
1. A Brief Glossary
2. Ommitted Fathers' Names

Index

“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

“Fitzgerald’s swift rhythms, bright images, and superb English make Homer live as never before…This is for every reader in our time and possibly for all time.”–Library Journal

“[Fitzgerald’s Odyssey and Iliad] open up once more the unique greatness of Homer’s art at the level above the formula; yet at the same time they do not neglect the brilliant texture of Homeric verse at the level of the line and the phrase.” –The Yale Review

“What an age can read in Homer, what its translators can manage to say in his presence, is one gauge of its morale, one index to its system of exultations and reticences. The supple, the iridescent, the ironic, these modes are among our strengths, and among Mr. Fitzgerald’s.” –National Review

With an Introduction by Gregory Nagy

About

Homer’s monumental epic set at the end of the Trojan War explores love, heroism, and the intricate relationship between gods and mortals—now in a beautiful clothbound hardcover edition designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith.

The Iliad is the first and the greatest literary achievement of Greek civilization—the cornerstone of Western culture and an epic poem without rival in world literature. The story centers on the critical events in the last year of the Trojan War, which lead to Achilleus’s killing of Hektor and the fall of Troy. But Homer's theme is not simply war or heroism. With compassion and humanity, he presents a universal and tragic view of the world: human life lived under the shadow of suffering and death set against a vast and largely unpitying divine background.

This edition presents Penguin Classics founder E. V. Rieu’s lively translation of Homer’s great epic.

Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Author

Homer was a Greek poet, recognized as the author of the great epics, the Iliad, the story of the siege of Troy, and the Odyssey, the tale of Ulysses’s wanderings. View titles by Homer

Table of Contents

The IliadForeword
Introduction
Introduction to the 1950 Edition
Notes on this Revision
The Main Characters
Further Reading
Maps:
1. A reconstruction of Homer's imagined battlefields
2. The Troad
3. Trojan places and contingents
4. Homeric Greece
5. Greek contingents at Troy

Preliminaries

The Iliad
1. Plague and Wrath
2. A Dream, a Testing and the Catalogue of Ships
3. A Duel and a Trojan View of the Greeks
4. The Oath is Broken and Battle Joined
5. Diomedes' Heroics
6. Hector and Andromache
7. Ajax Fights Hector
8. Hector Triumphant
9. The Embassy to Achilles
10. Diomedes and Odysseus: The Night Attack
11. Achilles Takes Notice
12. Hector Storms the Wall
13. The Battle at the Ships
14. Zeus Outmanoeuvred
15. The Greeks at Bay
16. The Death of Patroclus
17. The Struggle Over Patroclus
18. Achilles' Decision
19. The Feud Ends
20. Achilles on the Rampage
21. Achilles Fights the River
22. The Death of Hector
23. The Funeral and the Games
24. Priam and Achilles

Appendices
1. A Brief Glossary
2. Ommitted Fathers' Names

Index

Praise

“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

“Fitzgerald’s swift rhythms, bright images, and superb English make Homer live as never before…This is for every reader in our time and possibly for all time.”–Library Journal

“[Fitzgerald’s Odyssey and Iliad] open up once more the unique greatness of Homer’s art at the level above the formula; yet at the same time they do not neglect the brilliant texture of Homeric verse at the level of the line and the phrase.” –The Yale Review

“What an age can read in Homer, what its translators can manage to say in his presence, is one gauge of its morale, one index to its system of exultations and reticences. The supple, the iridescent, the ironic, these modes are among our strengths, and among Mr. Fitzgerald’s.” –National Review

With an Introduction by Gregory Nagy

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