Contributor
The Iliad
The Iliad is the foundational war epic of the Greek tradition. It is set in the tenth year of the Trojan War and concentrates on a few charged weeks rather than the whole conflict. Its subject is the anger of Achilles, the Greek warrior who withdraws from battle after a humiliating quarrel with Agamemnon, and the cost of that withdrawal for his friends, his enemies and the gods who watch. This edition presents Robert Fagles's modern verse translation with an introduction and notes by Bernard Knox. Among classic books, the poem stands out for refusing to make war simple: it admires courage while showing grief, waste and the shared mortality of Greeks and Trojans. Readers approaching world literature books for the first time will find a text that is violent, formal and often surprisingly humane.