--- product_id: 17038727 title: "The Iliad" brand: "homer" price: "£1.77" currency: GBP in_stock: false reviews_count: 9 url: https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/17038727-the-iliad store_origin: GB region: United Kingdom --- # The Iliad **Brand:** homer **Price:** £1.77 **Availability:** ❌ Out of Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The Iliad by homer - **How much does it cost?** £1.77 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Currently out of stock - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co.uk](https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/17038727-the-iliad) ## Best For - homer enthusiasts ## Why This Product - Trusted homer brand quality - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description Full description not available ## Images ![The Iliad - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81hmQ7igaXL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I almost NEVER give something five stars! *by S***Y on Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2019* The Introduction alone is good enough to justify the price of the book.I think almost every literate person in the world knows the story of the Iliad (I'll ignore the movie if you don't mind). I didn't buy the book for the stor4y, I think I bought it for the story-telling and the poetry. I can't pretend that I've finished reading it; I pick it up and read a few pages at a time or take it with me if I expect I'll have time on my hands somewhere.There's all kinds of debate about Homer, was he one man or many. If he was one man, the achievement is utterly mind boggling.Somehow, I feel I learn something about myself or humanity each time I read a few pages of the story. ### ⭐ Lots of typos!!! -- In the kindle version. *by M***D on Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2019* I bought this to participate in a Homer outdoor read-aloud festival. We were hiking and reading the epic at different places around lakes, mountains and ...walls. I had to keep getting corrected by people who had the paper version because of the typos and misprints in the kindle version. So NOT worth the kindle price that equaled a paper version. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ In short: In 2015, this is the best translation to get. *by J***U on Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2015* Before I begin, a disclaimer. This review is not written to help you decide whether to read the Iliad. It is to help you decide which translation of the Iliad to choose. In short: In 2015, this is the best translation to get. Get it in paper, not Kindle.Peter Green states in the introduction that he is following in the footsteps of Lattimore, to preserve as much of the poem in Greek--wording, sentence structure, meter, and so on--in English, but to also make it declaimable. It is a translation to be read aloud. Thus, it is also a challenge to Fagles's translation, among whose virtues is how well it works as an audiobook.To review, there are several major verse modern translations of the Iliad. Lattimore's is closest to the original Greek, and for undergraduate work can substitute for the original well enough. There is the Fagles translation, in modern free verse, is wonderful to read aloud. The Fagles Odyssey was on Selected Shorts once, and for a long time after I insisted that there was no other worthwhile contemporary translation of Homer. I swore by it. Lombardo's translation is pretty common in colleges because of the price and the slangy presentation. Then there is Fitzgerald, which some swear by, but Fitzgerald's translation is loose with the Greek and mannered and fey in its English. It even translates Odysseus as "Ulysses," a sure sign that fidelity to the Greek is not worth the translator's trouble. I am missing some others, I'm sure.So let us begin at the beginning. In the Greek, the Iliad has "μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος" Quite literally, "Rage! sing goddess of the son of Peleus Achilles." μῆνιν means, more or less, the anger that engenders revenge, rage, wrath, anger are all ok to some degree. (It's complicated, an entire scholarly treatise is written on the meaning of the word.) Green gives, "Wrath, goddess, sing of Achilles Peleus's son's [/ wrath]." Fagles gives "Rage--Goddess sing the rage of Peleus's son Achilles." Lattimore gives "Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus." Green and Fagles are right to put the first word first. This is poetry, after all, the order of the words matter, the first especially. The first word is the theme of the poem, the way it is directed first against Agamemnon, then toward the Trojans, and then tempered for a common moment of humanity, is the internal trajectory of the whole epic. Wrath might be best of all, since it conveys that it is anger in a sense that is unfamiliar to modern readers.Once, in my second year of taking Greek, I was told that there was no use of literal translations. Take it far enough, and you wind up with a textbook on how to read the book in the original Greek. Make it into readable English, and you wind up with a host of compromises where thousands of close translations might do. Go far enough you wind up with Girardoux's "The Trojan War Will Not Take Place," worthwhile on its own, but not really a "translation." That professor preferred Fitzgerald, but easy for her to do, she could read anything in Greek without any help. For us mortals with mostly forgotten Greek, or no Greek at all, closeness to the original in a translation should be treasured.In the end, translating Homer is a game of compromises, How much of the strangeness of 2500 year old lines and 3200 year old motivations do you keep? Dactylic hexameter calls for lines much longer than any form of English verse, so shorter lines or not? And so on. For me, Fagles is as far to compromise with how English verse should go as I am willing to accept. For what it's worth, Lattimore's English verse is better than his critics complain of.Starting from no knowledge of Greek, I'd choose Green. Over Lattimore because it's friendlier for the beginner and not worse as far as I can tell for a serious third reading. Over Fagles because the true-to-the-Greek line lengths convey the way the poem drives itself forward better in Green's line by line than in Fagles's free verse.Also. The introduction includes a plot summary of the whole Trojan War, of which the Iliad only covers a small portion. I have never seen such a succinct and complete synopsis before. There is also a synopsis of the poem keyed to the poem in the back matter to help find your place, an enlightening glossary of names and concepts to help you through your first read, and footnotes to inform the reader of context that has since been lost.Word to the wise re: Kindles. These are long verse lines. To get complete lines on a Kindle screen, you need a Kindle that allows text to display in landscape mode.Even then, complete lines only work in a very small font size. Get this in hardback for now. The hardback is stitched and bound to keep, so it is worth your money. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/17038727-the-iliad](https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/17038727-the-iliad) --- *Product available on Desertcart United Kingdom* *Store origin: GB* *Last updated: 2026-05-18*