Book
The Iliad
First published 2015
Caroline Alexander’s translation of Homer’s Iliad presents the final phase of a legendary war already in its tenth year. The poem opens with a quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon that drives Achilles from the fighting and leaves the Greek army exposed to a renewed Trojan attack. Hector leads the defence of Troy, the gods repeatedly intervene in human affairs, and the death of Patroclus draws Achilles back into battle with devastating consequences.
The Iliad does not narrate the fall of Troy; it concentrates on a short span of the war and ends with the funeral of Hector. Its central concerns are anger, honour, mortality, grief and the destruction created by heroic warfare. Alexander’s English version aims to preserve the directness and momentum of the Greek while allowing the speeches, battlefield scenes and recurring images of family and loss to carry the emotional structure of the epic.
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