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TRANSLATOR'S NOTE:

“I first began reading Homer in high school, early in my study of ancient Greek.

I liked The Odyssey, but I loved The Iliad with a passionate devotion. I have now lived with this poem for some thirty-five years-rereading it, teaching it in the original and in various translations, and, now, rendering it into English. For the past six years, I have worked intensively on this translation. But even now, when I turn back to lines I have read hundreds of times already, I find that the raw power of the Greek still startles me, like Athena suddenly tugging Achilles by the hair to stop him in his tracks. Often, I am unable to read without goose bumps, tears, or both.” ~Emily Wilson

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Discussion

Katrin 2y ago

From the Introduction:

“The Iliad has not always had the cultural prominence that it now enjoys. Virgil's Aeneid—which includes more of the famous myths, such as the story of the Wooden Horse, and offsets the tragic fall of Troy with a more hopeful narrative about the survival of refugees and the rise of Rome—was far more popular for many centuries after antiquity. The Homeric poem was not translated into English until the early seventeenth century, by the wonderful playwright and poet George Chapman. Many readers continued to prefer the stately Latin hexameters of Virgil over the emotional intensity and corporeal vigor of The Iliad.

But over the past century, in the wake of the two world wars and amid shifting attitudes…” ~Emily Wilson

Katrin 2y ago

#Pittsburgh (Carnegie Museum of Art) #Athena