The Iliad
When Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey appeared in 2017--revealing the ancient poem in a contemporary idiom that was "fresh, unpretentious and lean" (Madeline Miller, Washington Post)--critics lauded it as "a revelation" (Susan Chira, New York Times) and "a cultural landmark" (Charlotte Higgins, Guardian) that would forever change how Homer is read in English. Now Wilson has returned with an equally revelatory translation of Homer's other great epic--the most revered war poem of all time.
The Iliad roars with the clamor of arms, the bellowing boasts of victors, the fury and grief of loss, and the anguished cries of dying men. It sings, too, of the sublime magnitude of the world--the fierce beauty of nature and the gods' grand schemes beyond the ken of mortals. In Wilson's hands, this thrilling, magical, and often horrifying tale now gallops at a pace befitting its legendary battle scenes, in crisp but resonant language that evokes the poem's deep pathos and reveals palpably real, even "complicated," characters--both human and divine.
The culmination of a decade of intense engagement with antiquity's most surpassingly beautiful and emotionally complex poetry, Wilson's Iliad now gives us a complete Homer for our generation.
BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
This epic poem isn't about the Trojan War as I was under the impression while equipping myself with contextual information pre-read. It is a saga of rage, pride, heroism, honour, revenge and tragedy set amidst the war. From the beginning, it is known that Troy is destined to fall, the fate of the characters who die through the course is also predetermined and so it isn't so much focused on building suspense around the plot but rather how the characters respond and react to the fated events, and how they develop and evolve which explains the start of the epic with Achilles' rage and the end with him pacified to an extent, rather than the start and end of war.
My favourite part of the epic is that Homer does not paint any character as good or bad, not does he uphold either the Trojans or the Achaeans as being the better or rightful side. He explores each character and allows us to empathize with them, thus highlighting the complex nature of humans and the subjectivity of morality.
Another thing I particularly enjoyed reading was the humanizing of the gods; their flawed actions and petty conflicts amongst themselves over mortals provided some great comic relief to this intense drama!
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.