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THE ILIAD

Emily Wilson Homer

The Iliad, translated by Emily Wilson - the greatest literary landmark of antiquity masterfully rendered by the most celebrated translator of our time.
When Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey appeared in 2017 - revealing the ancient poem in a contemporary idiom that was "fresh, unpretentious and lean" (Madeline Miller, Washington Post) - critics lauded it as "a revelation" (Susan Chira, New York Times) and "a cultural landmark" (Charlotte Higgins, Guardian) that would forever change how Homer is read in English. Now Wilson has returned with an equally revelatory translation of Homer's other great epic - the most revered war poem of all time. The Iliad roars with the clamor of arms, the bellowing boasts of victors, the fury and grief of loss, and the anguished cries of dying men. It sings, too, of the sublime magnitude of the world - the fierce beauty of nature and the gods' grand schemes beyond the ken of mortals. In Wilson's hands, this thrilling, magical, and often horrifying tale now gallops at a pace befitting its legendary battle scenes, in crisp but resonant language that evokes the poem's deep pathos and reveals palpably real, even "complicated," characters - both human and divine. The culmination of a decade of intense engagement with antiquity's most surpassingly beautiful and emotionally complex poetry, Wilson's Iliad now gives us a complete Homer for our generation. Emily Wilson is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in Renaissance and early modern scholarship, a MacArthur Fellow, and a Guggenheim Fellow. In addition to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, she has also published translations of Sophocles, Euripides, and Seneca. She lives in Philadelphia.
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Published 2023-09-01 by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. - New York (USA)

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Extensive, fascinating illustrated profile of Emily Wilson by Judith Thurman, calling her translations of Homer "vitally urgent" and "radically plainspoken" Read more...

Essay about words/terms/epithets in the Iliad and Emily's approach to their translation Read more...

(Emily Wilson's) boldly innovative translation of the Iliad is an epic for our time... Read more...

Emily Wilson's translation of the "Iliad" brings Homer's great war story to rousing new life... propulsive... buoyant and expressive. Read more...

Italian: Mondadori

#1 Best Seller in Epic Poetry on Amazon Read more...

... the most interesting question about Wilson's new translation is not whether hers is a feminist "Iliad" (however this is defined) but whether it is the definitive "Iliad" for our times. My answer is yes... No other translation communicates the oral nature of the poem so brilliantly... Readable, relevant and from the heart, this is the "Iliad" we have all been waiting for, whether we knew it or not.

Back page of special translation issue dedicated to translations of the Iliad over the years, introduced by Emily Wilson and culminating with a brief passage from her new translation Read more...