Synopses & Reviews
The
Iliad is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, for which Barry Powell, one of the twenty-first century's leading Homeric scholars, has given us a magnificent new translation. Graceful, lucid, and energetic, Powell's translation renders the Homeric Greek with a simplicity and dignity reminiscent of the original. The text immediately engrosses students with its tight and balanced rhythms, while the incantatory repetitions evoke a continuous "stream of sound" that offers as good an impression of Homer's Greek as one could hope to attain without learning the language.
Accessible, poetic, and accurate, Powell's translation is an excellent fit for today's students. With swift, transparent language that rings both ancient and modern, it exposes them to all of the rage, pleasure, pathos, and humor that are Homer's Iliad. Both the translation and the introduction are informed by the best recent scholarship.
FEATURES
* Uses well-modulated verse and accurate English that is contemporary but never without dignity
* Powell's introduction sets the poem in its philological, mythological, and historical contexts
* Features unique on-page notes, facilitating students' engagement with the poem
* Embedded illustrations accompanied by extensive captions provide Greek and Roman visual sources for key passages in each of the poem's twenty-four books
* Eight maps (the most of any available translation) provide geographic context for the poem's many place names
* Audio recordings (read by Powell) of fifteen important passages are available at www.oup.com/us/powell and indicated in the text margin by an icon
Review
"Magnetically readable." --Booklist, starred review
"Homer's raw and violent Iliad remains as timeless and beautiful as the myth itself...highly recommended." --Choice
"[A] clear and energetic translation.... Staying true to Homer's poetic rhythms, Powell avoids the modified iambic lines found in Lattimore's, Fagles's, and Mitchell's works. He also avoids Lombardo's tendency to cast Homer in contemporary language and Fitzgerald's anachronisms. This fine version of The Iliad has a feel for the Greek but is more accessible than Verity's translation." --Library Journal
"Barry Powell, the master of classical mythology, has done it again--a powerful translation of the poem that started European literature. His muscular verses are faithful to the original Greek but bring the characters to life. This is a page-turner, bound to become the new standard translation." --Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules--for Now
"This fine translation of the Iliad uses well-modulated verse and accurate English that is contemporary but never without dignity. It gives the modern reader as good an impression of Homer's sonorous Greek as one could hope to attain without learning the language; its execution is faithful in spirit to the poet, who composed his great epic orally without the use of writing. Both the translation and the introduction are consistently informed by the best recent scholarship. This translation deserves a very warm welcome." --Richard Janko, Gerald F. Else Distinguished University Professor of Classical Studies, University of Michigan
"Barry Powell's clever translation is simple and energetic: sometimes coarse, sometimes flowing, it is always poetically engaged. This is a harsh, straightforward, and often brutal world of aristocratic warriors whose values are unambiguous, priorities fixed, and sensibilities basic. Fresh and eminently readable, Powell's Iliad is likely to stay." --Margalit Finkelberg, Professor of Classics, University of Tel Aviv, and editor of The Homer Encyclopedia
"Barry Powell, a published poet and novelist, has produced an Iliad translation for the 21st century. Powell's translation beautifully conveys Homer's direct, yet often archaic, style; the introduction and notes situate the poem in its historical and literary context, so that a reader--specialist or otherwise--can appreciate the poem both as a product of its time and as a timeless work exercising its fascination in shifting ways on generations of readers for nearly 3,000 years." --John Bennet, Professor of Aegean Archaeology, University of Sheffield
"Powell's translation renders the Homeric Greek with a simplicity and dignity reminiscent of the original: graceful, matter of fact, poetic in a pleasantly understated way. Lucid and fast, the text immediately engrosses the reader, with a tight and balanced rhythm that sings, and with a closeness to the original that allows the reader to hear the incantatory repetitions in the Greek. More accessible than Lattimore, more poetic than Lombardo, and more accurate than Fagles or Fitzgerald, this translation is an excellent fit for today's students." --William A. Johnson, Professor of Classical Studies, Duke University
"With swift, transparent language that rings both ancient and modern, Barry Powell gives readers anew all of the rage, pleasure, pathos, and humor that are Homer's Iliad--a reading experience richly illumined by the insightful commentary and plentiful images accompanying the text." --Jane Alison, author of The Love-Artist
"Comprehensive and authoritative . . . highly recommended." --Choice
Synopsis
The culmination of over 30 years of studying and thinking about Homer, world renowned scholar and accomplished poet Barry Powell has produced what one reviewer calls a "page turner, bound to become the new standard." Powell's translation renders the Homeric Greek with a simplicity and dignity reminiscent of the original. Lucid and fast, the text immediately engrosses the reader, with a tight and balanced rhythm that sings and with a closeness to the original that allows the reader to hear the incantatory repetitions in the Greek. More accessible than Lattimore, more poetic than Lombardo, and more accurate than Fagles or Fitzgerald, this translation is an excellent fit for today's students and general readers. With swift, transparent language that rings both ancient and modern, Barry Powell gives readers anew all of the rage, pleasure, pathos, and humor that are Homer's Iliad. His clever translation is simple and energetic: sometimes coarse, sometimes flowing, it is always poetically engaged. Powell lays bare the semantic background of Homer through felicitous phrasing and delivers us a Dark-Age epic, one more suggestive of Norse sagas than the cultural milieu of archaic Ionia. Both the translation and the introduction are consistently informed by the best recent scholarship. The illustrations are well chosen, the maps precise, the notes brief but helpful.
About the Author
Barry B. Powell is the Halls-Bascom Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Powell is one of the world's leading Homer scholars. In HOMER AND THE ORIGIN OF THE GREEK ALPHABET (Cambridge, 1991) he advanced the radical thesis that the Greek alphabet was designed specifically to record the text of Homer, a thesis that has now been widely accepted by the scholarly community and was the subject of a conference in Berlin in 2008. In 1997 he published (with Ian Morris) A NEW COMPANION TO HOMER (Brill), now the standard scholarly companion, translated into modern Greek. In 2004 he published HOMER (Wiley-Blackwell, second edition, 2007), an overview of the scholarship on the poems and on the poems themselves. It is now the single most widely read book on Homer. In 2009 he published his own Greek edition of the poems, ILIAS, ODYSSEY (Chester River Press), to accompany Alexander Pope's translation of the poems.
A published poet, Powell is also the author of Writing and the Origins of Greek Literature (Cambridge, 2003), as well as hundreds of scholarly articles.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Maps
Book 1: The Anger of Achilles
Book 2: False Dream and the Catalog of Ships
Book 3: A Duel to the Death
Book 4: Trojan Treachery, Bitter War
Book 5: The Glory of Diomedes
Book 6: Hector and Andromachê Say Goodbye
Book 7: The Duel Between Hector and Ajax
Book 8: Zeus Fulfills his Promise
Book 9: The Embassy to Achilles
Book 10: The Exploits of Dolon
Book 11: The Glory of Agamemnon and The Wounding of the Captains
Book 12: Attack on the Wall
Book 13: The Battle at the Ships
Book 14: Zeus Deceived
Book 15: Counterattack
Book 16: The Glory of Patroklos
Book 17: Fight Over the Corpse of Patroklos
Book 18: The Shield of Achilles
Book 19: Agamemnon's Apology
Book 20: The Dual Between Achilles and Ajax
Book 21: Fight with the River; Battle of the Gods
Book 22: The Killing of Hector
Book 23: The Funeral of Patroklos
Book 24: The Ransom of Hector
LIST OF FIGURES
1.1.The anger of Achilles
1.2. The taking of Briseïs
2.1. Nestor
2.2. A typical Greek warship
2.3. Lapiths and Centaurs
3.1. Helen and Priam
3.2. The duel of Menelaos and Paris
4.1. Lion hunt dagger
4.2 Greek against Greek
5.1. Aeneas wounded
5.2. Ares
5.3. Spring
6.1. Bellerophon
6.2. Hector and Andromache
7.1. Hector fights Ajax
8.1. Zeus
8.2. Trojan war scene
9.1. Embassy to Achilles
9.2. Achilles and Ajax play dice
10.1. Mycenaean armor
10.2. Capture of Dolon
10.3. Slaying of Rhesus
11.1. Gorgon
11.2. Cup of Nestor
11.3. Cheiron
12.1. Trojan and Greek fighting
13.1. Poseidon and chariot
13.2. Poseidon as Kalchas
14.1. Hera and Zeus
14.2. Hector and Ajax
15.1. Arming of Hector
15.2. Ajax defends the ships
16.1. Patroklos and Achilles
16.2. Death of Sarpedon
16.3. Kebriones
17.1. Euphorbos
17.2. fight over Patroklos
18.1. Thetis consoles Achilles
18.2. Peleus and Thetis
18.3 arms of Achilles
19.1. presentation of arms
19.2. Achilles and Briseïs
19.3. Achilles' horses
20.1. Achilles
20.2. Zeus and Ganymede
21.1. Scamander river
21.2. Apollo and Artemis
22.1. Achilles and Hector
22.2. Achilles drags Hector
23.1. Trojan captives
23.2. Funeral games of Patroklos
24.1. Judgment of Paris
24.2. Achilles and Priam