[.ca] Iliad (ISBN 0872203530)

From Amazon.com:
So great is the impact of ancient Greek literature on Western culture that even people who have never read Homer's Iliad or The Odyssey know a lot about them. The Trojan Horse, Achilles' heel, the Sirens' call, Scylla and Charybdis--all have entered popular mythology, becoming metaphors for the less heroic situations we face in our own lives. Ever since these oral poems were committed to paper (probably in the 8th century B.C.E.), people have been translating them. The version of Iliad translated by Stanley Lombardo is a brave departure from previous translations; Lombardo attempts to adapt the text to the needs of readers rather than the listeners for whom the work was originally intended. To this end, he has streamlined the poem, removing many of the stock repetitions such as the infamous "rosy-fingered dawn," or rewriting them in ways dependent on their context. What emerges is a vivid, lively rendition of one of the world's great stories of men and war. But classicists, beware: This Iliad has something of a '90s sensibility, from the cover art (a photograph of the D-Day Normandy landing) to Achilles' Rambo-like diction. It might well outrage the purists, but for those who remember their musty high-school reading of Homer's great epic with a barely suppressed yawn, Lombardo's energetic translation is just the version to change their minds.

An essential translation:
If this is your first time reading the Iliad, you probably want to go with a more traditional translation- there is no shortage of excellent ones out there. However, if you've read a translation before and either 1) loved it and want more or 2) found it dry, something you were forced to read in high school, this translation is essential. This Iliad has a more contemporary slant, a more staccato diction, and a more easily grapsed layout. Purists shouldn't worry too much- the essence of Homer's mastpiece remains intact, going so far as to helpfully break off his extended similies into italicized passages in between the narrative. In my opinion, this does much to add to the vitality of the work, and while the characters occasionally dip into questionable vocabulary (the phrasings and rare profanity), it injects some energy into the proceedings. Not that they need any- this is The Book for anyone interested in building a knowledge of conflict in human history, and has no shortage of graphic carnage in its content. The Iliad has experienced a resurgence of late as more and more people realize the importance of seeking answers to present questions in the lessons of the past. I highly recommend this translation- an excellent work.

Stilted in its own way:
I came to this translation expecting--I might even say intending--to like it. However, having slogged with some difficulty through the whole thing, I'm not sure I can recommend it. If it's true that Homer is chiefly of academic interest these days, then Lombardo's translation does what I think is known in academe as "strive for relevance," to make the hoary old text easier on the kids--heck, you can even see this striving in the book's cover photograph, which shows a view from a landing craft on D-Day. Unfortunately, if Professor Lombardo can shorten and abbreviate the verses, he can't at the same time "fix" the inherent antiquatedness of epic form. The "omniscient narrator" had yet to be invented, so the characters, like actors onstage, speak in bombastic declarations, the effect of which is somewhat like that of a musical, in which every now and then the action is interrupted so the characters can break into song; we're expected to believe that the fighting pauses regularly while one of these ceremonial speeches is declaimed. Another anachronism is the quasi-historical listing of names and events, which makes parts of Homer read like Genesis--and which to modern English-speaking readers is, shall we say, the opposite the relevant. And of course there's the curious and primitive interweaving of plausible narrative with the actions of the gods, which nothing could modernize. What the modern _reader_ really needs is not the lines made shorter and sweeter, but the book made so--in other words, an abridgement. Of course people don't like to read "parts" of books, so abridgements never get anywhere. Nevertheless, the _Iliad_ is far too long for anyone with a schedule. So, somewhat to my own surprise, I ended up not liking this translation very much, modern expressions and shortened lines notwithstanding. The English of Richmond Lattimore may be longer-breathed and more formal, but it is more in keeping with the ancient and foreign character of the book's structure and of the culture and values of the Greeks. I guess my own ideal version of a "reader's _Iliad_" would be a thoughtful abridgement of Lattimore. Oh, and by the way, if you don't want to be told the entire story before you read the story, avoid the introduction, which tells you what happens, what parts are important, and what you're supposed to think about it all before you even begin. Really, these sorts of essays should come _after_ the text, not before it, unless the reader is assumed to come to the text itself with half a brain and his or her mind on dinner.

Thoroughly Modern Homer:
A lot of things that were required reading in college should not have been; that is not the case for Homer's Illiad. There is a good reason why it's called a classic. Sure, it's a little long and the catalogues get a bit tedious. But I was totally blown away by how totally modern this story remains. The battle scenes are as bloody as anything about modern warefare we see on the nighly news. (The book cover has a photograph taken of World War II soldiers landing at Normandy entitled "Into the Jaws of Death.) And while reading this, I opened up an issue of USA Today and see that Brad Pitt will be starring in a movie based on this epic. The Iliad does have so much universal appeal. For example, the scene where Hector's son is frightened by his father's helmet and cries as Hector attempts to say goodbye before going into battle. Or when King Priam comes to plead with Achilles for the body of Hector and Achilles suggests that he eat in order to assuage his grief for his beloved fallen son. How many times have we all taken food to our bereaved friends and family. Sometimes it's all we know to do. If the purists are upset about this translation, I am not. Parts of this work read like a modern novel. In addition to an occasional four letter word, we see phrases like "get the hell out," "put me out of commission," "tough customer," and "you're nothing but trash," to name a few. There are beautifully constructed phrases as well: in one of the many battle scenes "death enfolded them" and Priam describes himself as being on the "threshold of old age." Sheila Murnaghan has written a long, interesting introduction to the work. There is also a catalogue of "Combat Deaths," and who killed whom if you are keeping up with that sort of thing, as well as a list of the speeches and an index of the major Greeks, Trojans and, of course, Zeus and his crowd. A thoroughly enjoyable reread!

The high-octane stylings of Stanley Lombardo:
After attempting to read Butcher & Lang's dry and archaic translation of the Iliad, I switched over to Lombardo and encountered a poem that was forceful, dynamic, and full of adrenaline. In his preface, Lombardo justified his use of modern-day colloquial English in order to bring out the urgency and energy that a poem of war deserves, and I believe that he has done so brilliantly. At times, I thought I was bearing witness to a professional wrestling match, because of the way the Greek and Trojan heroes would taunt each other during combat. The descriptions of combat can be quite graphic at times, but such is the nature of warfare and violence. In addition to his colloquial translation, Lombardo introduced a number of structural changes, such as getting rid of dactylic hexameter and changing the way similes are handled, in order to accomodate the peculiarities of the English language. Although a traditional Homerist might gawk at many of these innovations in style and structure, I think that they go a long way to increasing accessibility and arousing interest in the general readership.

Iliad - sans the whimsy and pompisity.:
I have a copy of this book in paperback. I'm going to give it away to a friend of mine who can't read Greek. Me - I want to buy a hardbound copy as soon as I can, so that it will last forever. This is the translation of the Iliad that I would want to pass on to the children I'll someday have. The Iliad is an essential book to understanding some of the many facets of strugle and passion in human society. It is too bad that the book is often thought of as something strictly read by stuffy intelectuals and boring academics. That literature has become something removed from the everyman is lamentable. But to often it is seen as boring old books for boring bookish people. Reading the Homer is a red flag for this stereotype. This distortion of Homer is due to two key problems: Whimsy and pompisity. I say whimsy because, very often, a person goes into Classics, and eventualy becomes a translator of Attic Greek or Latin because of a certain nostalgia for the warm hazzy feeling of a golden age long past, because of a desire to plunge into the musty depths of the well of history. Thier writting often reflects this historical romanticism, by adopting archaic or stiffled manners of English speech. If you are the type of person who thrills to long dry sentences filled with verbs that end in -th, then you may well enjoy other more formal translations, but you should be aware that Homer doesn't necessarily represent that. Homer was modern, at least to his original audience. The works of Homer were not nostaligic and filled with purple prose. To tell the truth, the Greek lanugage is anathema to that sort of writting. This, though creates the second problem, pompisity. The insitution of Classical Studies has been so deeply entrenched in Academia, that often translation of Greek classics is seen as a medium to convey a person's technical mastery of Greek, instead of presenting something readable. In Greek, there are several hundered different verb froms, as well as declinsons, meaning that the nouns are modified to reflect different uses in much the same way we conjugate verbs, so a full sentance of English could be required to explain the meaning of a single Greek word. Thus, Greek sounds brisque and fresh, even in ancient texts, but translators who attempt to show their mastery of Greek tend to ramble on, translating so many intricate nuances of the words that we lose track of the narrative in the midst of all these tiny details. Lattimore, for instance, has produced a supurbly technical tranlsation of the Iliad, and I would genuinely recomend it to any student of Greek, since it can provide a very litteral equivelent of the Greek in the English language, and then as a student of Greek, one can then enjoy the spirit and vitality that Lattimore utterly lacks by reading the Greek original. (Actualy, if one is willing to spend the time to do all this, it will be far more rewarding than merely reading even the best translation) On the other hand, unless you are an ardent classicist, reading Homeric Greek is an arduous process, and if I am looking to just enjoy a book for it's monumental themes and vivid human landscape, then this book provides that without years of college study. This book sounds much more like the Iliad that one reads in Greek, in that the Greek text seems very straight forward and visceral. The perfect example of this is that Lombardo consistently describes Agamemnon as a 'Warlord.' To me, this makes sense and does so without rambling on to create an artificial antiquity or a pompus academic sound. If you are looking to just read the Iliad for fun, or because you've no doubt heard of it and want to see what all the fuss is about, this is the perfect book.