The Iliad / The Odyssey - Softcover

Homer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0147712556 ISBN 13: 9780147712554

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1999

Synopsis

Gripping listeners and readers for more than 2,700 years, The Iliad is the story of the Trojan War and the rage of Achilles. Combining the skills of a poet and scholar, Robert Fagles brings the energy of contemporary language to this enduring heroic epic. If The Iliad is the world's greatest war story, then The Odyssey is literature's greatest evocation of every man's journey through life. Here again, Fagles has performed the translator's task magnificently, giving us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery. Each volume contains a superb introduction with textual and critical commentary by renowned classicist Bernard Knox.

about The Odyssey

About this title

Review:

This is a boxed gift edition of Fagles's two widely acclaimed translations of Homer.

The Iliad is typically described as one of the greatest war stories of all time, but to call it a war story does not begin to describe the emotional sweep of its action and characters: Achilles, Helen, Hector, and other heroes of Greek myth and history in the 10th and final year of the Greek siege of Troy. The Odyssey is, quite simply, the story of Odysseus, who wants to go home. But Poseidon, god of oceans, doesn't want him to make it back across the wine-dark sea to his wife, Penelope, son, Telemachus, and their high-roofed home at Ithaca. The story is told in easy-going, beautiful poetry; the characters speak naturally, the action happens briskly. Even the gods come across as real people, despite the divine powers they exercise constantly. Both works have been hailed by scholars and the public for the powerful language that brings clashing, pulsing life to these ancient masterpieces.

From the Back Cover:

Now available again—a beautiful hardcover gift set of Robert Fagles’s award-winning translations of Homer

Translated by Robert Fagles
Introduction and notes by Bernard Knox

Praise for The Iliad:
"Plain and direct, noble, above all rapid . . . leading the reader forward with an irresistible flow. More readable than Lattimore or Fitzgerald, and more performable . . .
[Fagles’s] version is imbued with humanity."
—Oliver Taplin, The New York Times Book Review

"Tremendous eloquence . . . An Iliad primed for grandeur."
—Douglass Parker, The New Republic

Praise for The Odyssey:
"Robert Fagles is the best living translator of ancient Greek drama, lyric poetry, and epic into modern English, and his translation of The Odyssey is his finest work so far."
—Garry Wills, The New Yorker

"A memorable achievement . . . Mr. Fagles has been remarkably successful in finding a style that is of our time and yet timeless."
—Richard Jenkyns, The New York Times Book Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0147712556
• ISBN 13: 9780147712554
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 1264