This book introduces the general reader, as well as the student of Classics, to the Iliad of Homer, the earliest work of European literature and one of its greatest masterpieces. This new commentary offers the background which readers of the poem in English need in order to understand its detail of story and characters. It provides a line-by-line guide to the story's unravelling and to the literary features which have ensured the enduring popularity of the Iliad since its composition in 750 BC.
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This book introduces the general reader, as well as the student of Classics, to one of the masterpieces of European literature, the Iliad of Homer, in the English translation of Richmond Lattimore. It offers the background that readers need to understand the poem's detail of story and characters, and it provides a step-by-step guide to the story's unravelling and to the literary features which have ensured its enduring popularity since its composition in 750 BC. The edition is designed specifically for the reader who has neither any previous knowledge of Greek nor of Homer and approaches the poem as a literary text, seeking to identify the poet's techniques and to assess their effects. It can be used both as a continous reading alongside Lattimore's (or any other) translation and as a reference work for specific points of textual understanding or interpretation. There is a comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography and a guide to further reading.
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