About this title: Pope spent his formative years as a poet translating Homer, beginning with "The Iliad", his translation of which Samuel Johnson called "the greatest version of poetry the world has ever seen". This edition makes available for the first time in paperback Pope's notes in their entirety, enabling us to listen in as one poetic genius illuminates the ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Mentor Bookjs
Date Published: 1960
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Nice soft cover, lightly read, some shelf wear to cover, light water mark on edges of first & last few pages, bends on top corner of front cover, light aging to pages, light crease along spine, stk #2039m9. 309 p. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Signet Book
Date Published: 1950
ISBN-13:9780451620569ISBN:0451620569
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. Great, VERY gently used book. Some edge wear, and the edges of the pages are tanned from age. No markings and the spine is tight. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: New American Library
ISBN-13:9780451624734ISBN:0451624734
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Cover has heavy wear, pages are clean and unmarked. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: New American Library, United States of America
Date Published: 1963
Description: Fair. No Jacket. Ex-Library. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. Translated by WHD Rouse. May be used as textbook, front wrapper repaired at lower spine. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books, Baltimore
Date Published: 1983
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Solid book with clean pages, first pg is clipped & title pg has a medium tear in middle of pg, book shows mild shelf, edge & corner wear with creases at spine, top back corner bent, Text in English, Greek, Ancient (to 1453). 469 p. 18 cm. "First published 1950; reprinted 1964. " "Note to the 8th printing" dated June 1959 read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: New American Library
Date Published: 1964
Description: Good+ 12mo. {006014} The Iliad by Homer. Published by New American Library in 1964. MASS MARKET PAPERBACK 12mo Classics {Book Condition} GOOD+ {Book Condition Details} Cover: minor edge wear, soiling, minor creasing on Spine, minor rubbing, End Papers: partial tanning on front paste down, owner inscription(s) on rear pastedown. {Contents} Translation by W. H. D. Rouse. {Mentor MP484.60} read more
"The Iliad was written down probably in the 6th century BC by a Greek poet (or poets) known to us only as 'Homer', though it had certainly been an oral tradition for a long time before that.
The poem's subject matter is the war between the Greeks and Trojans, set off by the elopement to Helen of Troy - daughter of the Greek King Menelaus of Sparta - with Paris, son of the Trojan King Priam.
The Greek army, under the command of Menelaus's brother Agamemnon, sets off for Troy to correct the insult to Greek honour and also, of course, to sack the greatest city in that part of the world at the time. One can't help thinking that avenging the elopement was a mere pretext to wage a war that had been brewing for some time, borne from plain old jealousy.
Meanwhile, on Mount Olympus, the gods and goddesses take sides for the grand game. All that's missing is the popcorn, but you can imagine them knocking back the ambrosia and getting as involved as English football fans watching their team playing in Germany.
The initial confrontation of the forces resolves itself fairly quickly into a series of individual duels between the heroes on each side. The overall action, however, concerns itself with the half-divine (on his mother's side) Greek hero Achilles and the Trojan hero Hector, son of King Priam. Although these two actually meet only towards the end of the poem, their polarity forms an invisible force field that arches over the smaller duels, and the tension between them is felt throughout the poem.
Everyone knows what it's all leading up to, and the question they're always asking themselves is when Achilles is going to stop sulking off-stage (over an insult by Agamemnon at the beginning) and make a decisive appearance on the Greek side. Actually, it's only when his best friend Patroclus is killed whilst wearing Achilles' borrowed armour that Achilles finally takes the field.
About the skeleton of the heroic duels is constructed the flesh that makes the Iliad live down the ages, imbued as it is with the common passions, strengths and weaknesses of real men and women, and it is full of marvellous psychological insights that we can all relate to.
In the end, of course, Troy falls and there is the usual rape and pillage by the victors, though this takes place beyond the ending point of the Iliad, the action of which had started ten years after the beginning of the siege. The poem is thus mounted like a jewel in the broader context of the siege, and the fall of Troy itself becomes the launch pad for the epic tale of Aeneas, who escapes the burning city to eventually found Rome, in Virgil's later poem.
The Iliad, with the Odyssey, was memorised by Greeks of the time as Muslims today memorise the Koran. They constituted their moral code and the heroes within them were their life models.
The tragedy of the Iliad is on the grand scale. The gods preside over a field of death, on which men are locked into a pitiless struggle, their individual actions dictated by rules of honour and heroism. Achilles himself is the ultimate tragic hero and man of destiny, fully aware that his life is destined to be cut short in its prime, and motivated only by his own inflexible code of conduct, in which his personal wishes are paramount. Nowadays he would be locked up as a psychopath, and yet there is an overwhelming pathos about him that transcends the carnage he metes out and raises him in our eyes to the point that we accord a respect to him that we would not accord to the gods, those inhuman creatures who dole out death and destruction from their Mount Olympus for the pure pleasure of it, to relieve their immortal boredom."
"I had never read this epic poem, so I pulled up my sleeves and dove in.
The book was good, but like a history book. It was neat to learn about Homer's take on the war, the kings, those events linked to the gods. But, just about everyone came off as a jerk. Paris was a jerk for starting the war. Helen was a jerk for leading Paris on. Hector was a jerk for posturing. Agamemnon was a jerk for needing to be the big boss. Menelaus was a jerk for letting his brother start a war over something that he probably should have handled one-on-one with King Priam. Achilles was a jerk for letting his ego rule his actions (granted, Agamemnon took Achilles girl). Patrolocus is a jerk for dying.
Odysseus is not that much of a jerk. He seems to be the voice of reason. Maybe that's why he got his own book? Still, his lesser jerkiness just makes him a pragmatic jerk.
The verse was simple, but the tome was dense. I enjoyed it, but the same way I enjoy Brussels sprouts: slowly, with salt and butter."
"Homeric Poems are indeed one of the most important bases for 'Western Culture'. The Iliad is a major piece of work and I think that its main attractive comes from that fact that this is a poem which comes from an archaich tradition that was well preserved generations after generations from thousand of years.
The Iliad poem is just fasciniating and there is hardly a better war poem-story than this one. If you're thinking about reading it you should also try 'The Odyssey' ! This last one, in my opinion, is far more interesting and exciting :) The Odyssey is the best poem from the 'Homeric tradition' and it also deals with the 'Troyan War'.
One good advice for you guys who doesn't know the poems : in fact you'll be disappointed if you're looking for some famous episodes of the war against Troy in Iliad (such as the fake horse episode). They do not appear in Homer's Iliad but in 'The Odyssey' just like everything we know about the end of the war comes basically from Odysseus (Ulisses) mouth."
"This is my second time reading the Iliad, and I loved it. I came up with a routine. A few times a week, I'd walk with my wife to our favorite local, independent coffee shop (about a mile away), order a small, soy mocha, loop the Sigur Ros album () on my iPod, read one book and then walk home. It worked great. I feel as if ancient Greeks couldn't have appreciated it more. I've already started reading the Odyssey with the same routine (except with a different Sigur Ros album)."
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