Word: iliad
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...principal reason seems to rest on precedent. The Fagles translation of Homer's Iliad, published by Viking in 1990 to considerably less hubbub than that heralding the upcoming Odyssey, went on to exceed all commercial expectations by selling 22,000 copies in hardback; the paperback version, now in its eighth printing, has moved 140,000 copies. And an abridged audiotape of the Iliad read by Derek Jacobi surprised Penguin Audiobooks by selling 35,000 copies...
...first assignment was to compare two or three English translations of the same passage in the Iliad. It was the most interesting assignment I'd ever had, and I still remember some of what I learned from it. Copies of the translations, along with the required and recommended books in all other undergraduate courses, occupied shelves that lined the Reading Room in Widener. There was plenty of room for them, and plenty of room to sit and read them at the long reading tables...
From the time he was a child growing up in Ankershagen, Germany, in the early part of the 19th century, Heinrich Schliemann knew his destiny. He vowed that when he was a man, he'd prove that the people, places and events that had entranced him in Homer's Iliad--Helen and Agamemnon, the siege of Troy and the magnificent city itself--were more than just legends. Or so he later wrote. Like many of Schliemann's tales, this one may have been a trifle exaggerated. "In general, scholars accept the fact that Schliemann told a great many lies," says...
...archaeologist, Schliemann committed an even greater sin: he claimed to have found together within what he called a royal palace some objects that were almost certainly discovered separately and outside the nearby city wall. Why did he twist the facts? Probably, says Traill, because his obsession with verifying the Iliad--quite real, even if it didn't date from childhood--demanded proof that King Priam, Helen's father-in-law, existed. What better proof than a royal treasure...
Count on it to keep coming back. The violent and raunchy streak in civilization runs deep and long into the past. More teenage boys might be attracted to the classics if they knew about Homer's graphic descriptions of spear points ripping through flesh in The Iliad or the quarts of stage blood needed for any production of Titus Andronicus. As for sex, the lewd posturings in some paintings of Hieronymous Bosch would be rated NC-17 if they showed up at the multiplex...