Homer's Iliad A Commentary on the Translation of Richmond Lattimore

by Postlethwaite, Norman

• ISBN13: 9780859896832
• ISBN10: 0859896838
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-01-01
• Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Summary

This book introduces the general reader, as well as the student of Classics, to one of the masterpieces of European literature, the Iliad of Homer, in the English translation of Richmond Lattimore. It offers the background that readers need to understand the poem's detail of story and characters, and it provides a step-by-step guide to the story's unravelling and to the literary features which have ensured its enduring popularity since its composition in 750 BC. The edition is designed specifically for the reader who has neither any previous knowledge of Greek nor of Homer and approaches the poem as a literary text, seeking to identify the poet's techniques and to assess their effects. It can be used both as a continous reading alongside Lattimore's (or any other) translation and as a reference work for specific points of textual understanding or interpretation. There is a comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography and a guide to further reading.

Author Biography

Norman Postlethwaite is Senior Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the School of Classics, Ancient History and Theology, University of Exeter.  He is co-editor of Reciprocity in Ancient Greece (Oxford, 1998)

Table of Contents

Preface	p. VII
Maps of Greece	p. X
Introduction
Homer	p. 1
The Homeric Epics	p. 2
The Historical Background	p. 4
The Trojan War	p. 7
Composition	p. 8
The Homeric Question	p. 14
Some Features of Style	p. 16
The Hero	p. 23
The Gods	p. 26
Commentary
Iliad One	p. 31
Iliad Two	p. 48
Iliad Three	p. 66
Iliad Four	p. 77
Iliad Five	p. 86
Iliad Six	p. 97
Iliad Seven	p. 111
Iliad Eight	p. 119
Iliad Nine	p. 128
Iliad Ten	p. 145
Iliad Eleven	p. 153
Iliad Twelve	p. 165
Iliad Thirteen	p. 173
Iliad Fourteen	p. 184
Iliad Fifteen	p. 194
Iliad Sixteen	p. 205
Iliad Seventeen	p. 219
Iliad Eighteen	p. 228
Iliad Nineteen	p. 240
Iliad Twenty	p. 249
Iliad Twenty-One	p. 257
Iliad Twenty-Two	p. 267
Iliad Twenty-Three	p. 280
Iliad Twenty-Four	p. 294
Bibliography	p. 311
Index	p. 319
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