Homer's Iliad: A Commentary on Three Translations

by Peter Jones

Overview

Homer's mighty epic, the Iliad, is the first work of western literature and one of the defining masterpieces of our culture. The purpose of this new line-by-line commentary is to help as wide an audience as possible to understand and appreciate the poem through the best of recent scholarship on the man and his work.

Peter Jones has selected three of the most widely used translations on which to base his commentary, those of E.V. Rieu (revised and updated by Peter
Jones), Martin Hammond, and Richmond Lattimore.
There is a useful introduction to the whole work and separate short introductions to each book of the Iliad. Each passage selected for comment is given a line-reference and quoted from all three translations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781853996573
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	06/27/2003
Series:	Classical Studies
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Peter Jones is the author of five books: Ancient and Modern, Intelligent Person's Guide to Classics, Homer's Iliad: a commentary on three translations, Homer's Odyssey, Learn Ancient Greek and Learn Latin

Table of Contents

Preface Technicalities General Introduction Poetry and history
1. Some features of the Iliad
2. Oral poetry
3. Homer and History Heroic values
4. The Hero’s mind-set The human and divine worlds
5. The interdependence of gods and men
6. Divine interpretation
7. Worshipping the gods
8. Destiny, death and free will Features of Homeric plotting and narrative
9. The plot and ‘retardation’
10. Homer as narrator and ‘focaliser’
11. Ring-composition
12. Similes
13. Battle Introductory bibliography Commentary Appendix: The ‘truce’ in Book 3
Bibliography Index