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The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation

by Homer

War, loss, and the divine in Homer’s epic

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AlbakiReads Editorial

War, loss, and the divine in Homer’s epic

Emily Wilson’s translation brings Homer’s *Iliad* into English as an epic centered on the violence and consequences of war. Its world encompasses the clamor of battle, the boasts of victors, and the grief surrounding loss and death. Alongside mortal conflict, the poem presents the force of nature and the gods’ larger designs—an expansive frame in which human lives unfold without full knowledge of what lies beyond them. This complete paperback edition offers the ancient poem as both a war narrative and an exploration of mortality, divine power, and the costs of conflict.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in ancient Greek epic poetry and Homer
  • Readers exploring literary portrayals of war, grief, and mortality
  • Readers seeking Emily Wilson’s English translation of *The Iliad*

Themes

War and its consequencesGrief and mortalityHuman and divine powerNature and the cosmos

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

"Mr. Fitzgerald has solved virtually every problem that has plagued translators of Homer. The narrative runs, the dialogue speaks, the military action is clear, and the repetitive epithets become useful text rather than exotic relics." ―The Atlantic Monthly

Anger be now your song, immortal one,
Akhilleus' anger, doomed and ruinous,
that caused the Akhaians loss on bitter loss
and crowded brave souls into the undergloom,
leaving so many dead men-carrion
for dogs and birds; and the will of Zeus was done.
-Lines 1-6

Since it was first published, Robert Fitzgerald's prizewinning translation of Homer's battle epic has become a classic in its own right: a standard against which all other versions of The Iliad are compared. Fitzgerald's work is accessible, ironic, faithful, written in a swift vernacular blank verse that "makes Homer live as never before" (Library Journal).

This edition includes a new foreword by Andrew Ford.

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