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Title: The Iliad by Homer, Robert Fagles, Bernard MacGregor Walker Knox, Bernard MacGregor Walke Knox ISBN: 0-14-027536-3 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: November, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.59 (80 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A readable Iliad in modern idiom
Comment: Robert Fagles's translation of Homer's Iliad is spiritually if not literally true to the original. Both versions repeat set speeches and descriptions in precisely the same words, and the translation exhibits a fairly regular rhythmic beat. But Homer's Greek was chanted, and the set passages were like refrains in which listeners could, if they chose, join in as a chorus. In English, the repetitions sometimes become tedious, especially when the same speech is given three times in two pages, as in the relay of Zeus's orders in Book II. Especially noteworthy is Bernard Knox's long and fascinating Introduction, a masterpiece of literary criticism and scholarship which conveys Homer's grim attitude toward war, the interplay of divine and human will, and the ancient concepts of honor, courage, and virility in the face of the stark finality of death. Knox also includes a succinct explanation of the quantitative, rather than accentual, basis of Greek (and Latin) verse. For easy readability, Fagles's translation is without rival. For elegance and poetry, however, I recommend Richmond Lattimore's older but still gripping and fluent translation.
Rating: 5
Summary: Sing to me, Muse . . .
Comment: In a lifetime of reading, this is simply, and by far, the best book I have ever read. I am just very grateful that my body, eyes and brain have held out long enough for me to have read (and re-read) this wonderful book, and that my moral and intellectual development were deep enough in this life to allow me to appreciate so much of what it has to offer. Read it, and read it aloud.
Rating: 5
Summary: The best book... period.
Comment: The Iliad contains all the knowledge you will ever need in human affairs. It imparts wisdom in understanding people and psychology which no other book can. The Iliad is the first book ever written in a European language, and it is also the best. It preserves the essence of Western culture in a capsule from the warrior days of prehistory. The heroic ethos displayed in the Iliad underlies all later warrior codes and societies; medieval knights, viking adventurers, and American cowboys, for example, all can trace their ethos back to this protohistoric 'macho' culture. In the days of Homer, and indeed of all ancient Indo-european societies, one's relationships with others and one's skill in speaking could mark the difference between life and death. In our more comfortable lives today, we cannot reproduce this precarious breeding-ground of cleverly persuasive speech, so we benefit greatly from learning these skills from the best of that period's speakers: Homer, as he puts 'winged words' in the mouths of his heroic men and women. The Iliad is 50% dialogue and vicious debate: it is almost a play more than a book. In this book, it is not the pen that is mightier than the sword, but rather the tongue. It comes to me as no surprise that the Greeks and Romans looked at this book, as they did no other, as their 'soly scriptures', albeit in a non-religious kind of way, to be studied, quoted and memorized for the sake of gaining wisdom and understanding in human affairs.
I have read the Iliad in its original Greek, and I can tell you that the rhythmical enchantment of the original can not in any way be reproduced in English, or in any other language. There is no way to capture the same hilarious moments or grand episodes of bravery with the same music in our language as Homer did with his Greek. An English translation can only be an interpretation. Robert Fagles seems to give the Iliad a slightly darker mood than I felt it has in the Greek, but that could just be my own 'interpretation'. I think there is a great deal of humour in the poem: characters making stupid mistakes, gods behaving like buffoons, and little witty comments from the teller (Homer). These are not lost in Fagles' wonderful work, but are perhaps slightly harder to notice than in the original. Again, this is just my own feeling. I also find the over-the-top excitement in the poem very amusing, such as the build up of the tale to the point where the gods openly join in the war, and among others the god of fire swoops down to do battle with a god of a river, and Achilles in his fury even fights against the water. The Iliad is like the orchestral piece by Edvard Grieg "The Mountain King", which steadily but surely accelerates anxiously to a truly explosive climax. Robert Fagles has captured very much of this, perhaps as much as can be reasonably expected in an English non-chanted translation. Richmond Lattimore's translation is essentially a word for word extremely faithful rendering in Enlglish (even to the point of having the same number of lines of poetry per 'book')and it is wonderful for those who would like to get closer to Homer's actual words, but on the other hand, Robert Fagles' translation is so eminently readable, speakable and memorable in our own language that one can feel the heartbeats of the warriors pulsing in their chests while reading it. "Rage- goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles": so it starts, and Homer's heroes rise, breathing, from the dust.
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Title: The Odyssey by Homer, Robert Fagles, Bernard Knox ISBN: 0140268863 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 29 November, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Aeneid by Virgil, ROBERT FITZGERALD ISBN: 0679729526 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 16 June, 1990 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: The Odyssey by Homer, Robert Fitzgerald, D. S. Carne-Ross ISBN: 0374525749 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 05 November, 1998 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: The Oresteia (PENGUIN CLASSICS) by Aeschylus, Robert Fagles, W. B. Stanford ISBN: 0140443339 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: February, 1984 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Three Theban Plays, The by Sophocles, Robert Fagles, Bernard MacGregor Walke Knox ISBN: 0140444254 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 03 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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