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The Iliad Kindle Edition

by Homer (Author), Edward George Geoffrey Smith Stanley Derby (Translator) Format: Kindle Edition

4.3 4,497 ratings

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

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457 pages
Language

English
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Publication date

May 17, 2012
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703 KB
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What's it about?
The Iliad is an epic poem about the Trojan War, written by Homer more than 2,500 years ago. It tells the story of the Greeks' struggle to defeat the Trojans, and the personal battles of the warriors involved.
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The time of two-and-twenty days is taken up in this book; nine during the plague, one in the council and quarrel of the Princes, and twelve for Jupiter’s stay among the Ethiopians, at whose return Thetis prefers her petition. The scene lies in the Grecian camp, then changes to Chrysa, and lastly to Olympus.
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Barbara Leonie Picard's retellings of traditional stories have long been acclaimed by critics and children alike. She has also written several historical novels and original fairy tales.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00847VIBQ
Publisher ‏ : ‎ (May 17, 2012)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 17, 2012
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 703 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
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Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 457 pages

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4.3 4,497 ratings

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Homer
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Homer was probably born around 725BC on the Coast of Asia Minor, now the coast of Turkey, but then really a part of Greece. Homer was the first Greek writer whose work survives.
He was one of a long line of bards, or poets, who worked in the oral tradition. Homer and other bards of the time could recite, or chant, long epic poems. Both works attributed to Homer - The Iliad and The Odyssey - are over ten thousand lines long in the original. Homer must have had an amazing memory but was helped by the formulaic poetry style of the time.
In The Iliad Homer sang of death and glory, of a few days in the struggle between the Greeks and the Trojans. Mortal men played out their fate under the gaze of the gods. The Odyssey is the original collection of tall traveller's tales. Odysseus, on his way home from the Trojan War, encounters all kinds of marvels from one-eyed giants to witches and beautiful temptresses. His adventures are many and memorable before he gets back to Ithaca and his faithful wife Penelope.
We can never be certain that both these stories belonged to Homer. In fact 'Homer' may not be a real name but a kind of nickname meaning perhaps 'the hostage' or 'the blind one'. Whatever the truth of their origin, the two stories, developed around three thousand years ago, may well still be read in three thousand years' time.
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Barry B. Powell
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Barry B. Powell was born in Sacramento, CA, in 1942. He studied at Berkeley and Harvard and taught for 34 years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is Bascom-Halls Professor of Classics Emeritus. He is celebrated for his argument tying the creation of the Greek alphabet to the recording of the Homeric Poems, but is also well known for his textbooks on Greek myth and Greek history and his work on the history of writing. He has published translations of the ILIAD, the ODYSSEY, the AENEID, and the poems of HESIOD. He has published original poetry, many fictional works, including an academic mystery A LAND OF SLAVES, a memoir RAMSES REBORN, and the illustrated TALES OF THE TROJAN WAR.
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Zameer Ahmed
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My name is Zameer Ahmed. The main purpose of my work is that I should entertain the people.
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Customer reviews

4,497 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book very interesting and intense. They also describe the narrative structure as good, intense, and great. Readers also mention the mythology as great and epic. Opinions are mixed on readability, with some finding it easy to learn and readable in English, while others say it's hard to read and confusing.

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Narrative structure Relevance Mythology Characters Readability

50 customers mention "Narrative structure"46 positive4 negative

Customers find the narrative structure of the book good, intense, and manly. They also mention the story has tales of battle, Gods, and sheer awesomeness.

"...The story is so good/intense it ruined my life for a solid week...." Read more

"...(high school, more than 20 years ago) I gotta say it was very good to remember this story...." Read more

"...Its exciting and has a little bit of everything: passion, war, hatred, love, and even some twisted humor...." Read more

"...Reading it in the quiet places helps and it seriously is a beautiful story." Read more

25 customers mention "Relevance"25 positive0 negative

Customers find the book very interesting, great for learning, and relevant. They also say the characters seem to have real motivations, fears, and emotions. Readers also mention that the epic is long and involved, incorporating intricate details.

"...Even with these flaws, The Iliad makes for an impactful and important read for college students" Read more

"...Achilles and even Priam are very well written characters, who are interesting and seem to have real motivations, fears and emotions...." Read more

"...Each Book of this epic is long and involved, incorporating such intricate details about the perceived interactions of the gods...." Read more

"...It's essential reading to understand the world in which we live." Read more

20 customers mention "Mythology"20 positive0 negative

Customers find the mythology in the book great, with a melodious rhythm that makes the words come to life.

"What can be said about this work? Yes, it is truly a foundational work of Western literature that deserves to be read, and, yes, this is an older..." Read more

"...Classic literature at its finest and when I found it free, put down the print copy of another novel to read again...." Read more

"Classic text. Not a fan of this translation...." Read more

"...which makes you care about all the characters, it also deserves the title as an epic poem because of the constant suspense and gruesome battles...." Read more

10 customers mention "Characters"7 positive3 negative

Customers find the characters in the book well-defined, gorgeous, and smell their body odor. They also appreciate the superb writing in poetic form.

"...There's a ton of character development and social/interpersonal nuance on every page of the Iliad...." Read more

"...Diomed, Hector, Achilles and even Priam are very well written characters, who are interesting and seem to have real motivations, fears and emotions...." Read more

"...the summaries great...the latin difficult, and the names of people and places extremely confusing...." Read more

"...It is an increadible book with extremely detailed character background, which makes you care about all the characters, it also deserves the title as..." Read more

114 customers mention "Readability"54 positive60 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the readability of the book. Some find it well-done and relatively easy to read, while others say it's hard to read and confusing.

"...by many, but I prefer Verity's on the grounds that it's less cumbersome in expression, a fault which Lattimore falls into surprisingly often, and..." Read more

"...The scan is horrible: regularly words, and even half sentences, are missing, and the complete last section of the Iliad..." Read more

"...It is relatively easy to read. Each chapter is prefaced by a plain English synopsis to aid understanding...." Read more

"...my preferred translation on hand at all times, but I find it basically unreadable due to the issues in the line breaks, which turns the entire book..." Read more

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Dwight Robert Wade III

My favorite translation.

Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2024

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Somehow Fagles achieves a remarkable translation of an author who can only be grasped outside of time, he too invoking the eternal muse.

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Iain

Close to perfect for the first time reader

Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2013

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I agree with almost everything Bruce Trinque says in his review... with one obvious exception, so I'll concentrate on that.

Given that with Verity the reader is "getting something that hews quite closely to the original" for a variety of reasons, and despite that it's "not the finest English poetic rendition" but "may well be the best way for an Enflish (sic) language reader to best approach the real heart of the Iliad," I would suggest that it is, in fact, close to perfect for the first time reader. In my opinion, it's also impressive for those already familiar with the poem, both in the Greek and in other translations.

Also, I would recommend that first time readers avoid like the plague both Fagles' and Mitchell's versions, the former vastly overwritten and the latter vastly underwritten. That's not to say that Fagles and Michell have produced unreadable versions, but both are very definitely "based on" the Greek text as opposed to being an attempt to faithfully reproduce the Greek text into English, which is what Verity is attempting and largely succeeds in doing. For what it's worth, I admire both the Fagles and Mitchell versions.

Lattimore's translation comes closest to Verity's in form and spirit and is venerated, justly, by many, but I prefer Verity's on the grounds that it's less cumbersome in expression, a fault which Lattimore falls into surprisingly often, and Verity seldom makes straightforward translation errors, which crop up in Lattimore more often than one might expect.

My only serious objection to Verity is that he frequently alters the expression of what are verbatim repetitions in the Greek, almost as if he were trying to disguise the immense volume of such occurences in the original.

However, if I were recommending a translation for first time readers, Verity's would come first with Lattimore's a close second.

35 people found this helpful

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Conrad Borski

Difficult, but Important.

Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2024

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The Iliad often suffers from an over-abundance of characters which makes remembering who's on what side and what their role is hard to remember. Even with these flaws, The Iliad makes for an impactful and important read for college students

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Alva Rose

Socially and emotional complex beyond my expectations

Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2016

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I don't know why people are so into the Odyssey as a tale of ~*the human condition*~ and why I so often hear that the Iliad is just a story about a war. There's a ton of character development and social/interpersonal nuance on every page of the Iliad. The conflict on the battlefield is told as much by its actual events as it is by strife amongst allies and among the gods as well. Yes, there are boring passages about How Many Boats Are Present but there's also an intensely emotional and gripping (gripping like the narrative makes it impossible not to feel like your heart is being crushed in a vice) climax and conclusion. The story is so good/intense it ruined my life for a solid week. I'm posting this review because Amazon keeps emailing me asking how many stars I would give the Iliad and every time I see that email come up I just think "oh my god stop asking me this book ripped my soul to shreds and rendered me void of any spirit for a week PLEASE DON'T REMIND ME." For the love of whatever please stop asking, it's legit distressing.

By the way: the Iliad is ancient gay angst. Nobody ever told me that part before (and it is The Entire Part, Really) but if I'd known that I would have read it a lot sooner. So there you have it.

9 people found this helpful

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Marco Vaca Salvador

Another classic revisited

Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2015

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What "new" thing can you really say about a 2500+ year old book? Not much really, but I'll try to convey my opinion in a few words.

This has to be THE story about (classic) heroism, duty, and ancient warfare; it is also one of the mythology must-reads. I really wanted to read the verse version but I settled for this (decent) prose translation.

From the last time I read this (high school, more than 20 years ago) I gotta say it was very good to remember this story. Diomed, Hector, Achilles and even Priam are very well written characters, who are interesting and seem to have real motivations, fears and emotions. Also, I didn't really remember the timeline of the story. It begins with the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon, and ends with Hector's funeral. The fragility of my memory plus Hollywood taxed my perception of this in particular.

The only drawbacks from the book I think is the astounding level of genealogic detail. Most of the time you will skim over long paragraphs of names that you really won't ever remember, let alone their forefather's names. That really cuts the flow of the book. Some people will perhaps love this, but I think it detracts from the (modern) readability of the book.

I think I will re-read this again in 20 years, to see if my memory of the story has improved, or perhaps the 100th Hollywood interpretation of the story will have erased completely the fantastic "original" storyline.

Re-read this girls and boys. You will enjoy it, provided you don't get bored in the genealogy trees.

9 people found this helpful

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Tom McGann

Xxx

Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2024

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Xxx

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Mithil Bhoras

A time travel to the ancient world

Reviewed in India on May 28, 2022

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Note: Review is for Penguin Classics version. Translation by E.V. Rieu

This year I've decided to dive deep into the mythology of the ancient world: a form of literature that changed our art and history as we know it. Next up are the critical editions of Indian Itihasic epics. But I decided to tackle the relatively short epics of the Greek and Sumerian worlds.

And boy was I blown away. For modern readers who enjoy stuff like Harry Potter or other fantasy/mythology stuff, this may honestly be a tough story to get into. Ancient mythology often digress, very frequently, to subplots that may not be related to the core story. For example, when a soldier is killed, Iliad goes on a short tangent to explain their backstory.

At first this seems nonsensical, especially for us modern readers who are used to sharp, to the point stories. And who live in a time of people with short attention spans. But it is totally the opposite: Greek mythology is an intricate, dense epic with vast arrays of characters, mortal and immortal, who are connected in complicated alliances or enemities. A relationship two characters may have can have serious repurcussions later in the story. A minor character whom you thought minor may not be what they seem.

Even we ignore the last context, it feels EPIC to give importantance to minor insignificant detail since these fill the story with meaning, making you believe that this truly is happening right in front of you. The book gives a detailed catalog of all the alliances and contingents: something that modern writers will refrain from, without knowing this might add a juicy flavor to their stories.

Having read my fair share of fantasy epics, I know how one walks a thin line when writing in a detailed fashion, with many digressions. This is an issue I seemed to have with writers like Sanderson or Jordan. What makes Iliad different is that it details only on the things that are important. It doesn't waste time describing architecture or places but instead words are spent on beautiful descriptions of lineages, armors, shields, and alliances.

Homer's epics are also famous for their use of simile. Like calling someone "Swift footed" or "Godlike" when mentioning someone. Or giving examples like comparing the veracity of a hero's attack to that of a lion attacking a herd of sheep. Homer ensures he can use simile any where he can. It makes the experience enrichening, powerfully imaginative. I still wonder why modern writers don't try to be this poetic?

The intricate ways all the subplots simply collide over each other gives a lot of entertainment and even a philosophical insight into human nature. It is no surprise that Greek philosophy often takes Homer's epics as examples to ponder over philosophies like ethics, aesthetics, politics, etc. which have essentially single-handedly impacted whole of western thought.

When looked through a modern lens, there obviously are many ethical issues. All characters, good or bad, approve of slavery (including Achilles). But this is obviously an incorrect approach. The story needs to be enjoyed taking into consideration the time it was written in, when things like slavery were totally acceptable in many ancient societies.

It still feels breathtaking to see the representation of many moral, philosophical issues that remain relevant today. War and Revenge are Iliads primary themes and the insurmountable tragedy they cause may remain forever relevant. The absolute poetic prose brings you closer to the characters.

Eg: there is this particular scene where Andromache begs her husband Hector to come back alive from the war, beging that since she lost all of her family, Hector was a husband, father, brother, sister and mother to her, all of it. Despite the ugly fact that it was his family that sacked and destroyed her home, I was still moved by this astonishingly poetic statement, which also helped me care for Hector.

All in all, this is one of the most pulse pounding, thrilling epics I've read. And it comes as no surprise to me why it has stood the test of time!

9 people found this helpful

davide albertin

Recensione The Iliad (AmazonClassics Edition) (English Edition)

Reviewed in Italy on October 20, 2020

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Beyond the grandiose aura of classicism that surrounds a work of this genre, reading it for the first time in its entirety, without being satisfied with the pieces we find in the anthologies, is an exciting experience. And it is because, for the first time, the Iliad appears to me in its narrative unity, and the best known moments, expected after thousands of lines, are charged with a new value. The introductory essay is wide and useful, the notes are sober and not heavy, very beautiful, even if I am not a Greek scholar but limiting myself to some classicist memories, the translation that retains a great musicality

One person found this helpful

Peter

The Myth and the History of Aeneas, who escaped from a burning Troy to arrive in Italy

Reviewed in Germany on July 14, 2020

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When the war which saw the Greeks against the inhabitants of Troy was finished, with the complete destruction of Troy, few people escaped from Troy and sailed through the Mediterranean see and arrived where today is Rome.
The Hero who made this journey is Aeneas, a descendant of the King of Troy, who will experience many adventures before arriving in Italy. The book provides a good idea of the human beings' life, habits and feeling in the 8th Century before Christ.

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Teresa Delgado Duque

Muy buena edición

Reviewed in Spain on August 6, 2016

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No solo es una bonita edición de la Iliada sino que se trata de una buena traducción y un y cuidado trabajo

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Laurie Fyffe

The Iliad comes to life!

Reviewed in Canada on May 13, 2014

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I enjoyed reading The Iliad. The poetry is surprisingly exciting and the story contains personal elements that reveals these historic figures as very human and flawed. On Saturday, June 14, 2014, in Ottawa, Ottawa Storytellers (OST) will be 'telling' the story of the Iliad in this same version, translated by Rieu. This is a chance to appreciate the drama of The Iliad as oral history. It's exciting to think that centuries after it was written, The Iliad will again be presented in the same way many people first experienced the story. Rieu's Iliad is a timeless classic that lives on the page, and in the telling.

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