An Accessible Iliad: A 21st Century Rendering of Homer's Iliad Jackson, Emer

Rage and grief, revenge and betrayal, remorse and forgiveness, valiant warriors, despairing women, swindling gods - all feature in Homer's Iliad, the first extant work of literature in Western civilization. However, for all its token renown, many people have only a hazy knowledge of the events portrayed in the poem. The story has come close to being lost because most translations are virtually inaccessible to the modern reader, due to the long and tortuous complexity of the original text. Yet the Iliad is one of the most poignant stories of anger, war and grief in Western civilization, a story that has resonated in human consciousness down the centuries. It is not a war chronicle, but the story of a personal quarrel which takes place within the context of a war and which precipitates horrifying consequences.

'An Accessible Iliad' strives to make the story accessible to the ordinary reader, while retaining the authenticity of the original poem. It is not a re-telling nor simply an abridged version of the work, rather it follows the thread of the story in straightforward prose, the translation staying closely with the original, but omitting irrelevant passages and repetitions, compressing long-winded descriptions and brutally synopsizing those chapters which deal interminably with the ebb and flow of the fighting. The original structure of 24 book/chapters remains in place. As attested by Plato among others, Homer's Iliad was widely diffused among the ordinary people of the ancient world. The rhapsodes or bards, who performed it orally over the centuries, would have amplified and attuned it to reach out to their particular audiences. The rationale for 'An Accessible Iliad' is simply that - to make a version of this amazing poem that reaches out to a 21st century audience.