Cowper's translation into Miltonic blank verse has been unjustly neglected. There are two good modern
verse translations, both by Americans. Preferences will vary between the tough shorter lines of Robert
Fitzgerald (New York, 1961, 1974; Oxford, 1984), and the more literary, close and slow-pace six-stress
metre of Richmond Lattimore (Chicago, 1951, 1965) the source of most of the translated passages in this
chapter. There is also a fine Odyssey in high prose by Walter Shewring (Oxford, 1980), and an Iliadby
Martin Hammond (Harmondsworth and New York, 1987).
Introductions
There is a variety of introductions to be recommended. Chapter 3 of A. Lesky's History of Greek
Literature (translated by J. Willis and C. de Heer, London, 1966) is admirably catholic. Adam Parry's
long Introduction to his father's work The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman
Parry (Oxford, 1970) is an important evaluation of the achievements and shortcomings of the approach
through the oral tradition. J. Griffin's Homer (Oxford, 1980) in the 'Past Masters' series aims to bring out
the quality of Homer's thought and imagination. Michael Silk's The Iliad in the 'Landmarks of World
Literature' series (Cambridge, 1987) is particularly strong on style and tone. The Introduction to C.W.
Macleod's text and commentary on Iliad, Book 24 (Cambridge, 1982) is far more than is usually
expected of that genre: it is a tragic, yet humane, interpretation of the Iliad of the kind intuitively
glimpsed by Simone Weil (L'lliade ou le poeme de la force, trans. M. McCarthy, New York, 1940); and
it is explored on the level of detailed phrasing as well as larger structure.
The Iliad
Among the more specialist works on the Iliad B. Fenik's Typical Battle Scenes in the Iliad (Wiesbaden,
1968) demonstrates how the oral tradition works on the scale of whole scenes. C. Segal, The Theme of
the Mutilation of the Corpse in the Iliad (Leiden, 1971), traces the cumulative sequence of an important
motif. J. M. Redfield, Nature and Culture in the Iliad (Chicago, 1975), while 'anthropological' in mode,
makes many sensitive observations on the human stuff of the poem. J. Griffin's Homer on Life and
Death (Oxford, 1980) is more perceptive about Homer's gods in the course of showing that the poem's
fundamental 'subject' is mankind's state of mortality. S. Schein, The Mortal Hero (Berkeley, 1984) is a
good distillation of the revaluation of Homer's poetic quality which has gathered momentum since 1970.
The Odyssey
The Odyssey has not yet inspired the same kind of new wave of interpretation as the Iliad. B. Fenik's
Studies in the Odyssey (Wiesbaden, 1974) goes much further than his Iliadhook, however, in showing
how typical scenes contribute to the character of the whole poem. N. Austin's collection of essays
Archery at the Dark of the Moon (Berkeley, 1975), while fanciful in places, is also a serious attempt to
capture the Odyssey's elusive allure. W.B. Stanford's The Ulysses Theme (2nd edn., Oxford, 1958) is a
classic study of the archetypal character of Odysseus in the Odyssey and later literature.
Background And History