Homer, The Iliad (Translated by Robert Fagles, with notes and an introduction by Bernard Knox, ©1990, Penguin 1998)
It’s more than a week since I finished reading The Prelude, and I’m already missing reading a couple of pages from a classic text first thing every morning. I’ve decided to take on Homer’s Iliad, which definitely fits the definition of a classic as a book that you can’t read for the first time. My copy of Robert Fagles’s translation was a Christmas gift a while back and has been begging for attention from my sagging To Be Read shelf ever since.
This is my first crack at the actual Iliad, but I have read many fragments, versions and variations of it. Here’s a list of the ones I remember:
- Kingsley’s Heroes, the Argonauts Club and the Queensland School Readers – from my parents, the ABC and primary school respectively – all told stories of Achilles, and almost certainly some parts of the Iliad
- The Classics Illustrated comic some time in the 1950s
- Book 2 of The Aeneid, Virgil’s account of the fall of Troy, which I studied in high school
- Alice Oswald’s Memorial, subtitled ‘an excavation of The Iliad‘, which presents only the deaths from Homer’s poem (here’s a link to my blog post)
- The 28 minute version in Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics (link to the podcast)
- Pat Barker’s Silence of the Girls, which tells the story from the point of view of a captured woman (link to my blog post)
- David Malouf’s Ransom, which I’m pretty sure I haven’t read, but I feel as if I know it intimately from reading and hearing about it.
I made a start on it this morning. So far I’ve read the translator’s note and I’m part way through the learned Introduction by Bernard Knox. Getting excited already. I’ll report back in a month.
Me fail? I fly! 
Hooray! The Iliad. Looking forward to reading your first dispatch.
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Thanks for the encouragement, Kathy
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Great choice! I look forward to your posts. After that you might like to read The Odyssey translated by Emily Watson – a revelation to read a translation by a woman.
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Thanks for this encouragement too, other Kathy. I’ve read The Odyssey, but probably much too fast …
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But I read the Fagles translation, so could probably do with reading Emily watson’s
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Enjoy the journey!
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Thanks Lusa
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Lucky you! The Iliad is fantastic, and so are Ransom by David Malouf, which I translated into Swedish and had to read absolutely everything I could find connected even remotely to that old epic, and that’s how I came upon Memorial by Alice Oswald, which I’d like to translate, but it might be too big a challenge.
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What a wonderful job you have, Meta, that requires you to immerse yourself in such writing
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The iliad is fantastic!
I would recommd that you read Stephen Mitchell’s introduction to the Iliad as well! It made me really appreciate the book!
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Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll look for it
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