The Iliad (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) | Homer

The Iliad (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) | Homer | A Classic

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The Iliad (Penguin...

	The Iliad (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) Homer Penguin Classics, 1998 - 704 pages average customer review:based on 141 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Fantastic Translation!

Robert Fagles and Bernard Knox make a great team: the former's translation is as lyrical and huge in scope as Homer's original, and the latter's introductory essay crams a lot of insight into a few pages. I have read classics experts who maintain that Homer's original Greek uses a much less epic and more straitforward tone than Fagle, but I do not believe that that is the consensus among experts, and it certainly does not diminish what Fagle has accomplished. A truly great book.

A Classic

Its a classic and will be read for generations. (Sorry I couldn't resist)

very pleased

I'm not one to get drawn into the debate on the merits of this or that translation. I really enjoyed the readability of this effort; it flowed really well. It has been my plan to reread many of the classics that I haven't touched in the years since school and I found this version of the Iliad to be much more enjoyable than I had remembered. I also got alot from the introduction which provided some solid insight into the analysis of the texts as well as good look at the history of the piece itself. All in all...very well done.

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Great Translation, With One Flaw

I like the story of Troy. I've read the Iliad before and loved it. This translation was wonderful as well. I've always loved the thought of a Trojan war so long ago with the heros that Homer describes.

One problem I had with this book is that the footnotes are located at the back of the book, which is fine, but there is no reference to them in the text of the story. I went through my book and small marks next to the lines which contained further explanation in the back of the book, which only took about five or ten minutes to do, but it would have been nice if it was already marked by the publisher. If you don't know the endnotes are there, and you don't look, you find out after you read the book! That's the only reason I gave this particular edition four stars, but the story would get many more, if I could!

For younger readers and parents: there are some graphically descriptive scenes of violence, which is usually the case in stories about war, but they are there!

What a wonderful story - I know I'll read it several more times!

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Not the biggest fan of this translation...

Fortunately, Homer is so wonderful that even fairly imaginative renderings of the text, like Fagles', can't obscure his genius.

I guess I have a bit of a problem with Fagles' translation. When I read Homer, I want to read Homer, not Robert Fagles re-writing Homer. This version reminds me of the comment made to Alexander Pope after he published his version of "The Iliad" - "a pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call it Homer".

This translation is kind of a modern play on the Fitzgerald - something of an "artistic" version rendered into a kind of de rigeur semi-elliptical poetry-speak, relying on a reconfiguration of lines and sentences, replacement of Homer's own phrases, etc. If that's your bag, by all means get this.

But for me, the best translation out there is that which translates Homer as faithfully as possible consistent with comprehensible English. Fagles' cavalier handling of the source text eliminates this as the "best" translation for me.

Both the Loeb and Lattimore versions are very faithful, but I think some readers may find them fairly difficult, and then stop reading the book altogether, which would be a great shame since The Iliad is well worth reading even in the worst translation.

My two cents is that the translation out there which does the best job of combining fidelity to the original with readability is the Jones/Rieu put out by Penguin. It doesn't have the packaging of the Fagles nor the great essay by Bernard Knox in the front, but I think it does the best job at maintaining transparency, really letting Homer shine through. (But if you have the stomach for the Loeb, you could go hardcore and try that, too. But don't try this unless you're familiar with the entire story first...).

Whatever translation you get, I also recommend buying a CliffNotes to get the necessary background information. Another great resource is Malcolm Willcock's commentary, which I used while I was reading this. If you're going to take the time to read a classic, you might as well try to get everything out of it you can.

Good luck. I hope this review helped someone.

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