The Iliad

By Homer, Robert Fagles & Bernard Knox

The Iliad - Homer, Robert Fagles & Bernard Knox
  • Release Date: 1990-10-01
  • Genre: Poetry
Score: 4
4
From 102 Ratings

Description

This translation of The Iliad equals Fitzgerald's earlier Odyssey in power and imagination. It recreates the original action as conceived by Homer, using fresh and flexible blank verse that is both lyrical and dramatic.

Reviews

  • Homer & Fagles: Brilliant; Penguin: useless

    1
    By Kazango
    The Iliad is an extraordinary work of course. This is the first time I have read it. I was not disappointed by Homer nor by Fagles' translation. I enjoyed it greatly. My disappointment (and the reason I give this edition two stars is because of the inexcusable laziness of Penguin. They quite obviously OCR'ed the text for this iBooks edition, and then didn't bother to have a competent proofreader edit the results. The consequences are that this is a digital edition marred by egregious OCR failures on what seemed like every page. It is nearly intolerable that Penguin treated a classic work with such evident disdain. I sincerely hope never to have such an experience with a Penguin property again, because if I do I will simply stop buying them. I love their dead tree editions, but this digital edition was a tremendous disappointment. A further disappointment is that Penguin couldn't be bothered to link the notes (found at the end of the book) to the text! How hard would it be to provide a link at book four, line 300 to the relevant note so that the interested reader doesn't have to keep a digital finger at the end of the book and try to keep track of when he needs to look at the notes as he is reading? Again: tremendously disappointing. Lazy. Cheap. Homer, I think you are great. Dr. Fagles, you were fantastic. Penguin, for shame!!
  • A Great Starter Iliad

    4
    By Hastings73
    If you've never read the Iliad, this is the translation for you. If you don't want to hear the name of every hero and his grandparents, this is the abridgment for you. Listen to it once or twice, then sit down with the full-length text.
  • Poorly Done

    1
    By Silent Scribe
    Great footnotes but no links to them. All these great features that e-books have but the publishers don't use them and you don't know it until they've already got your money!
  • New translation

    5
    By Pharmacdon
    Yes, there are free editions but this is a newer translation and therefore copyrighted.