The Iliad

A New Translation by Caroline Alexander

By: Homer, Caroline Alexander - translator

Narrated by: Dominic Keating

With her virtuoso translation, classicist and best-selling author Caroline Alexander brings to life Homer's timeless epic of the Trojan War.

Composed around 730 BC, Homer's Iliad recounts the events of a few momentous weeks in the protracted 10-year war between the invading Achaeans, or Greeks, and the Trojans in their besieged city of Ilion. From the explosive confrontation between Achilles, the greatest warrior at Troy, and Agamemnon, the inept leader of the Greeks, through to its tragic conclusion, The Iliad explores the abiding, blighting facts of war.

Soldier and civilian, victor and vanquished, hero and coward, men, women, young, old - The Iliad evokes in poignant, searing detail the fate of every life ravaged by the Trojan War. And, as told by Homer, this ancient tale of a particular Bronze Age conflict becomes a sublime and sweeping evocation of the destruction of war throughout the ages.

Carved close to the original Greek, acclaimed classicist Caroline Alexander's new translation is swift and lean, with the driving cadence of its source - a translation epic in scale yet devastating in its precision and power.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2015 Caroline Alexander (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers

Excellent

This well written and masterfully narrated version has fast become my favorite version of this epic tale.

A bold reading of the basis for Western literature

As was surely the intent of its composers, this poetic telling of the struggle of bodies and hearts and minds for the sacred city of Troy weaves together threads of myth, history, and human drama to form a living tapestry in the imagination of the listener.

A tale as old as time reborn for a new era!

This is by far the best translation of The Iliad that I have ever read. The narrator was outstanding and the story was so vivid.

As it should be

I thoroughly enjoyed this performance. The translation is amazing, and the reader is excellent. My sympathies have always been with Hector and the Trojans, but I finally found some appreciation for Achilles through this translation, which strikes a perfect note between the loftiness of epic and modern diction. I highly recommend it.

Never Read Before

I never read the Illiad before, but I have always been interested in Greek mythology. I didn't know so many chapters were dedicated to war...very brutal sometimes. i also wad confused with the plot of the illiad and Virgil's Aeneid.

Wrath

Not only the best translation of Homer's Iliad, but possibly the best recitation. Dominic helps add a grim and dramatic ambience to one of the most wildly violent yet beautiful stories of the ancient world.

Excellent

Read the book along with the audible and it was a big help with all the names in the book.

Forceful

I had a hard time getting into this translation when it first came out. The language seemed unnecessarily formal, sometimes downright knotty. I kept comparing it to another line-by-line translation that came out recently, the one by Peter Green, and found greater clarity in his.

What a difference a gifted narrator makes! When I listen to Dominic Keating read this translation, it sounds anything but formal and knotty: yes, it's rhythmic and filled with all the repetitive epithets so dear to Homer's heart, but boy does it have an impact. I actually listened to the Catalogue of the Ships this time around without zoning out, and could almost see the great armies massing on the plain, feeling the vibration of their boots on the ground. The words cut like sharpened bronze.

It comes with a short, clear, and helpful introduction by Alexander that condenses a lot of the material she covered in her book "The War that Killed Achilles".

A reliable source - the most reliable of all, Caroline Alexander herself, in an online chat - said she has no plans to do The Odyssey. It's not that doing The Iliad wore her out, it's just that she doesn't feel the same emotional connection to The Odyssey. I'm sorry to hear that. I've love to hear someone do for that poem what she's done for this one.

Many people have done line-for-line translations of Homer, Richmond Lattimore being the one most often recommended. Lattimore's verse has great dignity but (for me) not nearly so much clarity, and nowhere near the visceral punch.

I've read the Iliad in so many different translations that I have no idea whether this one would be good for a first-time listener. But if you have an interest in Homer, you owe it to yourself to give this one a listen at some point.

As Close to the Bone of the Greek as Possible

I’m no scholar, but it has always seemed to me that a translator has two options. Either they can produce a faithful, line-for-line version of the original, or they can give us the sense of the original, cast in the best English verse of which they’re capable.

Chapman, Golding, Pope, Dryden, Robert Fitzgerald and Clive James are fine examples of the second approach; Caroline Alexander of the first. As she says in her introduction, “I have tried to carve the English as close to the bone of the Greek as possible.” That means, “…verse, with a cadence that attempts to capture the rhythmic flow and pacing, as well as the epic energy, of the Greek, and which like the Greek varies from verse to verse.” In the face of a universal chorus of critical praise, you don’t need me to tell you she succeeds.

For all the literary sophistication of the original, this version also imparts the poem’s underlying primitiveness—and I’m not thinking exclusively of the almost forensic details of battlefield deaths. Fortunately, someone at Harper Audio selected the perfect reader to communicate Alexander’s “unembellished…and uniquely accessible”, (New Criterion) work. I overuse the word “superb,” but Thesuarus.com doesn’t offer a better one to describe Dominic Keating’s performance.

Narration and translation matters

After having read Why Homer Matters (by Adam Nicolson), I tasked myself to read the source material, having never read it in my formal education. I managed to get half way through a different adaptation when it became a chore to continue so I abandoned listening. Recently, I was highly recommended this translation and I'm glad I gave it another try. The introduction alone gave a succinct encapsulation of "why Homer matters". The Iliad is the source of all storytelling and this translation was incredibly fluid and the narration was completely engaging! I was swept into the drama (which I felt lacking in my last attempt) and I think I would listen to anything read by this narrator.