The Iliad

De: Homer, Emily Wilson - translator

Narrado por: Audra McDonald

2024 Audie Award Winner for Literary Fiction & Classics

When Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey appeared in 2017―rendering the ancient poem in contemporary language that was “fresh, unpretentious and lean” (Madeline Miller, Washington Post)―critics lauded it as “a revelation” (Susan Chira, New York Times) and “a cultural landmark” (Charlotte Higgins, Guardian) that would forever change how Homer is read in English. Now Wilson has returned with an equally revelatory translation of Homer’s other great epic―the most revered war poem of all time.

Brought to life in vivid audio form, this crisp verse translation of The Iliad roars with the clamor of arms, the bellowing boasts of victors, the fury and grief of loss, and the anguished cries of dying men. It sings, too, of the sublime magnitude of the world―the fierce beauty of nature and deities’ grand schemes beyond the ken of mortals.

Wilson’s musical iambic pentameter verse is brought to life in the evocative voice of narrator and Broadway legend Audra McDonald. In her thrilling reading, this magical and often horrifying tale gallops at a pace befitting its legendary battle scenes. The culmination of a decade of intense engagement with antiquity’s most surpassingly beautiful and emotionally complex poetry, Wilson’s Iliad now gives us a complete Homer for our generation.

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

©2023 Emily Wilson (Translation) (P)2023 Audible, Inc.

Well Done!

Fantastic translation. Fantastic performance. Enjoyed this immensely. if you have ever been intimidated by this poem,give this a try.

The attention to detail

Every single minute was worth the listen (read). Thankful tbat Emily Wilson took the time to translate this epic story for the world. To Audra McDonald, your narration was riveting!!

Who knew Homer could sound so great!

For many a year I put off reading the Iliad, thinking it would be too difficult to get through. But this translation and performance is outstanding.
The story of the Trojan War is familiar to me, having studied Virgil's Aeneid in high school. Hearing it from the Greek's point of view was refreshing.
I can't wait to listen to the new translation of the Oddessy by Wilson.

Screaming narrator

The story is excellent. However, why does the narrator need to scream most of the time? Is it the only way to convey emotions? Was really irritating at some points.

Beautiful translation

This translation leaves all others in the dust. If you are looking to experience the majesty of Homer, this is the one.

Translation and performance!

This translation is superb!! It is easy to understand and well written. The performance is excellent! Overall, very enjoyable!

A great performance of an excellent translation of this classic.

I liked everything about it. It’s interesting that we have so much in common and yet so much that is alien to the ancient Greeks

Effective Translation Of A Rather Boring Text

Perhaps Eminem described The Iliad best: "HI KIDS, DO YOU LIKE VIOLENCE? / WANNA SEE ME STICK NINE INCH NAILS THROUGH EACH ONE OF MY EYELIDS?" Wilson apologizes in the introduction that there aren't more words for "spear" because it comes up so often in this text, but Homer shows us that the number of places that spear can go in the human body (or in the ground, if altered in its flight by one of the deathless gods) is limitless! The combat is plentiful but not very strategic--the most interesting part of the many battlefield scenes is the ways that The Gods can intervene in subtle & not so subtle ways. Indeed, one of the biggest takeaways from the book is how fickle and petulant The Gods were seen to be. Besides the battles, the rest of the book is mostly about how petulant and exasperating humans can be.

If you do want to engage with this text, for a couple of reasons it might be better to read rather than listen to. First, while Audra McDonald does a great job of conveying gravitas (especially when characters are enraged or inconsolable), she does not differentiate the characters that much (and Homer doesn't help--all of the characters like to speechify in very similar ways), so it's easy to get lost if you space out and miss the identifying tag at the beginning of a diatribe. The other issue is that Emily Wilson has apparently painstakingly replicated Homer's naturalistic tone in order to give us an equivalent experience to that of the original audience . . . which means that it's hard to appreciate all the work she put into refashioning the text into iambic pentameter without seeing the line breaks.

Wilson's scholarly introduction really brings across the care she took with the translation, but while it does provide some valuable context for contemporary readers, it's hard not to call it a bit excessive . . . even if it is ultimately more interesting than the text it describes.

A classic made modern

After deciding to catch up on classics I’d never read growing up, and happening upon Emily Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey to start, I was so surprised at how accessible and entertaining it was that I waited anxiously for this release like it was the latest Harry Potter book. I just couldn’t settle for a stuffy, pretentious translation and reading of the Iliad after such a great experience with such a wonderful modern language translation and performance of the Odyssey. And it was worth the wait! I can’t recommend it enough to anyone else like me who wants to get to know these classics in a way that’s easy to understand and enjoy.

Listening to this performance is an experience like none other

I’ve read the Iliad before, but hearing the raw emotions in this performance was like being reintroduced to a story I knew so well. I ended this in tears, sobbing along with Priam, Andromache and Hecuba.