Reading Homer’s Iliad

We still read Homer’s epic the Iliad two-and-one-half millennia since its emergence for the questions it poses and the answers it provides for our age, as viable today as they were in Homer’s own times. What is worth dying for? What is the meaning of honor and fame? What are the consequences of intense emotion and violence? What does recognition of one’s mortality teach? We also turn to Homer’s Iliad in the twenty-first century for the poet’s preoccupation with the essence of human life. His emphasis on human understanding of mortality, his celebration of the human mind, and his focus on human striving after consciousness and identity has led audiences to this epic generation after generation. This study is a book-by-book commentary on the epic’s 24 parts, meant to inform students new to the work. Endnotes clarify and elaborate on myths that Homer leaves unfinished, explain terms and phrases, and provide background information. The volume concludes with a general bibliography of work on the Iliad, in addition to bibliographies accompanying each book’s commentary.

Reading Homer’s "Iliad" is a book-by-book commentary on the epic’s major themes, meant to inform students new to the work. Endnotes elaborate on myths Homer leaves unfinished, explain terms and phrases, and provide background information. The volume includes a general bibliography, in addition to bibliographies accompanying each book’s commentary.

Kostas Myrsiades, professor emeritus of Greek and comparative literature at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, is a distinguished translator and Hellenist and the recipient of the Gold Medallion (1995) from Greece’s Hellenic Society of Translators of Literature. He is the author and/or translator of 22 books, articles, and invited lectures on Greek literature and culture, including Reading Homer's "Odyssey" (Bucknell University Press). For twenty-two years (1990-2012) he edited College Literature, a quarterly of literary criticism and theory.

List of Illustrations 
Introduction: The Poem, the Poet, and the Myth 
1 Achilles’ Wrath Exposed: Il. 1 (Days One to Twenty-One)
Book 1 
2 The First Battle: Il. 2–7 (Days Twenty-Two to Twenty-Four)
Book 2 
Book 3 
Book 4 
Book 5 
Book 6 
Book 7 
3 The Second Battle: Il. 8–10 (Day Twenty-Five)
Book 8 
Book 9 
Book 10 
4 The Third Battle: Il. 11–18 (Day Twenty-Six)
Book 11 
Book 12 
Book 13 
Book 14 
Book 15 
Book 16 
Book 17 
Book 18 
5 The Fourth Battle: Il. 19–23 (Day Twenty-Seven)
Book 19 
Book 20 
Book 21 
Book 22 
Book 23 
6 Achilles’ Wrath Concluded: Il. 24 (Days Twenty-Eight to Fifty-Three)
Book 24 
Appendix A: Days Covered by the Iliad Narrative 
Appendix B: Character Names in the Iliad 
Appendix C: Place-Names in the Iliad 
Appendix D: Greek Terms Cited 
Acknowledgments
Notes 
General Bibliography 
Index