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
Publisher: Faber & FaberISBN: 9780571274185Number of pages: 96Weight: 120 gDimensions: 235 x 158 x 30 mmEdition: Main
Alice Oswald
Alice Oswald celebrates nature like no other modern poet. A legacy of her training as a gardener,she has imbued the natural world with a power and resonance across seven collections of poetry,including the immersive melding of prose and poetry Dart,a meditation on the eponymous Devon river written over a period of three years. Her numerous awards include the Forward Poetry Prize and the TS Eliot Prize.
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