Achilles

The bloody prequel: a triumphant new translation of the Iliad

23 September 2023 9:00 am

Following her translation of the Odyssey, Emily Wilson has turned her hand to the Iliad – and it is a triumph, writes A.E. Stallings

The illiterate poet who produced the world’s greatest epic

12 August 2023 9:00 am

With its carefully calibrated sense of time, the Iliad is clearly the work of a single man and not a ‘rolling snowball’ of different contributions, argues Robin Lane Fox

‘Achilles has a dispute with Agamemnon [following Briseis being taken away, and Achilles refusing to fight until she is returned]’, J.H. Tischbein, 1776, oil on canvas. (Bridgeman Images)

Pat Barker travels to Troy, but finds herself diverted somewhere outside Ypres

22 September 2018 9:00 am

Sing muse, begins The Iliad, of the wrath of Achilles. We are dropped straight into the tenth year of the…

The Siege of Troy (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Blois, 17th century)

A woman’s version of the Trojan War

9 April 2016 9:00 am

The Iliad begins with a grudge and ends with a funeral. In between are passages, if not necessarily of boredom,…

‘Thetis giving Achilles his arms’ (fresco), Giulio Romano, 1492–1546

A new translation of the Iliad

8 August 2015 9:00 am

‘Why do another translation of Homer?’ Richmond Lattimore asked in the foreword to his own great translation of the Iliad…