When Emily Wilsonâs translation of The Odyssey appeared in 2017ârevealing the ancient poem in a contemporary idiom that was âfresh, unpretentious and leanâ (Madeline Miller, Washington Post)âcritics lauded it as âa revelationâ (Susan Chira, New York Times) and âa cultural landmarkâ (Charlotte Higgins, Guardian) that would forever change how Homer is read in English. Now Wilson has returned with an equally revelatory translation of Homerâs other great epicâthe most revered war poem of all time.
The Iliad roars with the clamor of arms, the bellowing boasts of victors, the fury and grief of loss, and the anguished cries of dying men. It sings, too, of the sublime magnitude of the worldâthe fierce beauty of nature and the godsâ grand schemes beyond the ken of mortals. In Wilsonâs hands, this thrilling, magical, and often horrifying tale now gallops at a pace befitting its legendary battle scenes, in crisp but resonant language that evokes the poemâs deep pathos and reveals palpably real, even âcomplicated,â charactersâboth human and divine.
The culmination of a decade of intense engagement with antiquityâs most surpassingly beautiful and emotionally complex poetry, Wilsonâs Iliad now gives us a complete Homer for our generation.
Emily Wilson is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in Renaissance and early modern studies, a MacArthur Fellow, and a Guggenheim Fellow. In addition to Homerâs Iliad and Odyssey, she has also published translations of Sophocles, Euripides, and Seneca. She lives in Philadelphia.