Purchase
An Excavation of the Iliad
Faber and Faber
October 2011
On Sale: October 6, 2011
96 pages
ISBN: 0571274161
EAN: 9780571274161
Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Fiction Ancient Classics | Fiction Poetry
Matthew Arnold praised the "Iliad" for its 'nobility', as
has everyone ever since - but ancient critics praised it for
its enargeia, its 'bright unbearable reality' (the word used
when gods come to earth not in disguise but as themselves).
To retrieve the poem's energy, Alice Oswald has stripped
away its story, and her account focuses by turns on Homer's
extended similes and on the brief 'biographies' of the minor
war-dead, most of whom are little more than names, but each
of whom lives and dies unforgettably - and unforgotten - in
the copiousness of Homer's glance. ""The Iliad" is an oral
poem. This translation presents it as an attempt - in the
aftermath of the Trojan War - to remember people's names and
lives without the use of writing. I hope it will have its
own coherence as a series of memories and similes laid side
by side: an antiphonal account of man in his
world...compatible with the spirit of oral poetry, which was
never stable but always adapting itself to a new audience,
as if its language, unlike written language, was still alive
and kicking". (Alice Oswald).
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
| 
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy