Customer Reviews

The Iliad and The Odyssey Boxed Set

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I don't know whether it is the font size, the appropriate spacing, or the translation, or even, the combination of all three. This was the most accessible, approachable, and engaging version I have ever read. I am no scholar of these works so I cannout vouch for the literary accuracy, but I suspect the main literary themes are left unadulterated: War is hell and gruesome; both sides suffer; stife breeds conflict even among allies; life is an odyssey with free will being buffetted by many uncontrollable forces (gods?); graciousness, courtesy, wit, wisdom, and personal responsibility are attributes that will help us through this journey. I highly recommend this version as well as this 2700 year old work of art. Literature doesn't get any better than this.

I highly recommend this boxed hardcover set, because after reading Robert Fagles translation, you'll want to keep it as a part of your personal book collection..to re-read again and again. I have read many fine and not-so-fine translations of these works (including the admirable Robert Fitzgerald and the classic Richard Lattimore translations), but Robert Fagles' translations are by far the best I've seen. Fagles manages to bring the stories to life while still maintaining a sense of the poetic beauty of the original. I especially liked the Illiad. These translations are far from being dusty and archaic, but instead are very much "alive", capturing the excitement and beauty of these classic tales. If your first exposure to these classics was a very negative one, try again with Fagles (you'll be very glad you did!)... and if you're a great fan of Homer, you'll definitely want to read these wonderful new translations by Robert Fagles.

Also, the "introductions" by the well-respected classicist, Bernard Knox, are a great source of additional,up-to-date information about these works and the Homeric period of Ancient Greece.

Simply wonderful

Robert Fagles is the finest translator of Homer I have ever read. I have loved classical history and classical myths since I was seven; Robert Fagles' translation makes me feel as if I am reading these stories for the very first time.

His poetical vision reawakens Homer; he makes the agony and glory of the Iliad and Odyssey a living, vibrant and above all human force. This is literature like a trumpet blast; these are words to wake the imagination and emotions.

Few moments are more moving in any literature, than when Hector speaks to his beloved wife Andromache for what will be the last time. As he turns to his baby son Astynax, the child cries in terror at the crested helmet masking his father's face. Hector pulls the helmet away and laughs, and hugs his son.

Hector will die that day. Andromache will end her days as a slave in a far country. Their son will be thrown to his death from the walls of burning Troy. All this the Greeks knew.

Achilles is the great Greek hero. He needs a worthy enemy to kill, a warrior of skill and courage and resolve. Homer carefully depicts the doomed Hector as the greatest Trojan solider, a man with deep regard for his peoples' welfare, who inspires fear from his enemies, a leader of renown and a man for all men to honour.

Yet Homer does more than this - he deliberately makes Hector human and every Greek who knew and loved the Iliad knew Hector to be human, to be a man like himself.

Enemies in our century are demonised. They are communists, they are capitalists, they are Arabs or Moslems or the great Satan America. They are very carefully portrayed as inhuman (and undeserving of any humanity?)

There is no sentimentality in the Iliad. It is brutal. Death upon death, the warriors fight for their honours and die alone and in pain. There is no afterlife here. A man lives on through his name only, and he buys his name with blood and fear. This is grim, not gratuitous - heroism is applauded but the sheer waste of war is laid bare.

Yet - the enemy are never less than human, they are not despised for being "different". Individuals are honoured or loathed, but emotions rest with individuals not races or nations.

I cannot convey in either spoken or written words just how much I recommend these translations to anyone, whether they are already familiar with the Iliad and Odyssey or are coming to Homer for the first time..............

Robert Fagles has done an excellent job at giving life to this ancient 'song', an epic of war. If you read this translation aloud (which you should certainly do!!), you will see how he has tried to give it the feel of an oral tradition, as if a bard were truly singing it. If you want to read this for the excitement of it, and really get a feel for the life behind it, read this translation. There are some boring parts, but that's just how the Iliad is, and it has nothing to do with Fagles's translation.

However, if you are in a reading group of some sort where you all have different translations, you will quickly realize upon comparison that Fagles's translation, especially compared to the Lattimore, leaves something to be desired in terms of its literal-ness (is that a word?). For studying the particulars, I would suggest the Lattimore translation instead, which makes more of an effort to be true to the original Greek, and is still interesting, but less readable and intense than the Fagles translation.

For nearly three thousand years the poems of Homer have thrilled listeners of every culture and epoch. Allusions to The Iliad and The Odyssey are so pervasive in our western culture that they are almost required reading for anyone who wishes to study western literature.

Briefly, The Iliad is the story of the ten year long Trojan War, which climaxes with the destruction of the city of Troy by the Greeks through the deception of the Trojan Horse, and The Odyssey is the telling of the many adventures of the Greek Chieftan Odysseus (also known as Ulysses) during his long journey home. Filled with tales of the heroes and gods of ancient Greece, the poems are noted for the masterful use of wonderfully illustrative similes and metaphors, which become all the more wonderful with the understanding that Homer is believed to have been blind!

Translations of Homer which try to adhere to the original poetic structure and be as literal as possible are immensely difficult to read by all but the most focused scholars. Other translations have completley deviated from any resemblance of poetry in an effort to be more accessible to the average reader. Here Mr. Fagles has achieved a translation which is not only easy to read and understand, but which retains the poetic lyricism of the original.

Homer's works should be on the bookshelf of anyone who is interested in the classics, and with this translation you don't have to be a University Professor to appreciate them.

This review is split into 2 sections, first a review of the translation itself and then a review of the Kindle edition.

Translation:
Homer's stories are great and in this translation extremely easy to read. They were originally written in dactyllic hexameter, a very difficult-to-read metric. Some translations (Chapman's and Pope's) attempt to maintain the rhythm and while they succeed in maintaining a rhythm, the convolutions necessary to make the story fit make them very difficult to follow.

The Butler translation does away with all attempts at poetry and is written in prose. This makes the story very easy to follow. One glaring problem is that while the Iliad follows the original Greek (and hence the Greek names), the Odyssey suddenly changes and Zeus becomes Jove, Poseidon becomes Neptune and so on. This makes the story extremely difficult to follow as every character "changes name".

Kindle edition:
In terms of the Kindle conversion, this well done. This edition does not suffer from broken lines as other Kindle editions do.

I have read the Lattimore translation, but Fagels has far out done this earlier work. The story's prose, flow and verbage capture the emotion and grandeur of the event.

The stories are older than the written word, and therefore I will not go into detail about the plot save to mention that Fagels has done a masterful job at making these ancient classics much more accessable to a modern audience, while still managing to maintain a sense of the lyric origins of the original.

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, 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.

With many books, translations are negligible, with two obvious exceptions, one is the Bible, and surprisingly the other is The Iliad. Each translation can give a different insight and feel to the story. Everyone will have a favorite. I have several.

For example:

"Rage--Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
Murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many souls,
great fighters' souls. But made their bodies carrion,
feasts for dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving towards its end.
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles."
-Translated by Robert Fagles

"Sing, O Goddess, the anger of Achilles, son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a heroes did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures for so were the counsels of Zeus fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles first fell out with one another."
-Translated by Samuel Butler

"Rage:
Sing, Goddess, Achilles' rage,
Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain pitched countless souls
Of heroes into Hades' dark,
And let their bodies rot as feasts
For dogs and birds, as Zeus' will was done.
Begin with the clash between Agamemnon--
The Greek Warlord--and godlike Achilles."
-Translated by Stanley Lombardo

"Anger be now your song, immortal one,
Akhilleus' anger, doomed and ruinous,
that caused the Akhaians loss on bitter loss
and crowded brave souls into the undergloom,
leaving so many dead men--carrion
for dogs and birds; and the will of Zeus was done.
Begin it when the two men first contending
broke with one another--
the Lord Marshal Agamémnon, Atreus' son, and Prince Akhilleus."
-Translated by Translated by Robert Fitzgerald

"Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son of Achilleus and its devastation, which puts pains thousandfold upon the Achains,
hurled in the multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished since that time when first there stood the division of conflict Atrecus' son the lord of men and brilliant Achilleus."
-Translated by Richmond Lattimore

"Sing, goddess, of Peleus' son Achilles' anger, ruinous, that caused the Greeks untold ordeals, consigned to Hades countless valiant souls, heroes, and left their bodies prey for dogs or feast for vultures. Zeus's will was done from when those two first quarreled and split apart, the king, Agamemnon, and matchless Achilles."
-Translated by Herbert Jordan

"An angry man-there is my story: the bitter rancor of Achillês, prince of the house of Peleus, which brought a thousand troubles upon the Achaian host. Many a strong soul it sent down to Hadês, and left the heroes themselves a prey to the dogs and carrion birds, while the will of God moved on to fulfillment."
-Translated an transliterated by W.H.D. Rouse


You will find that some translations are easier to read but others are easier to listen to on recordings, lectures, Kindle, and the like.

Our story takes place in the ninth year of the ongoing war. We get some introduction to the first nine years but they are just a background to this tale of pride, sorrow and revenge. The story will also end abruptly before the end of the war.

We have the wide conflict between the Trojans and Achaeans over a matter of pride; the gods get to take sides and many times direct spears and shields.

Although the more focused conflict is the power struggle between two different types of power. That of Achilles, son of Peleus and the greatest individual warrior and that of Agamemnon, lord of men, whose power comes form position.

We are treated to a blow by blow inside story as to what each is thinking and an unvarnished description of the perils of war and the search for Arête (to be more like Aries, God of War.)

Troy - The Director's Cut [Blu-ray]

I have a number of translations of these works in my personal library. Since I was beginning a new course about these books, I went searching for a more up-to-date (modern) approach.

Some professors of classical studies have criticized these translations for being marred by excessive use of colloquial language and that Fagles' meter does not capture the feeling of the Homeric hexameter. That may be true but, as far as I am concerned, it doesn't matter.

Fagles' translation is very easy for the ordinary American to read and that is most important as far as I am concerned.