The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: Homer and His Iliad, Robin Lane Fox

Homer and His Iliad

Robin Lane Fox

A "compelling and impressive" (Sunday Times) reassessment of the Iliad, uncovering how the poem was written and why it remains enduringly powerful

The Iliad is the world's greatest epic poem--heroic battle and divine fate set against the Trojan War. Its beauty and profound bleakness are intensely moving, but great questions remain: Where, how, and when was it composed and why does it endure?

Robin Lane Fox addresses these questions, drawing on a lifelong love and engagement with the poem. He argues for a place, a date, and a method for its composition--subjects of ongoing controversy--combining the detailed expertise of a historian with a poetic reader's sensitivity. Lane Fox considers hallmarks of the poem; its values, implicit and explicit; its characters; its women; its gods; and even its horses.

Thousands of readers turn to the Iliad every year. Drawing on fifty years of reading and research, Lane Fox offers us a breathtaking tour of this magnificent text, revealing why the poem has endured for ages.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Basic Books
  • Publish Date: Oct 24th, 2023
  • Pages: 464
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 9.50in - 6.10in - 1.60in - 1.50lb
  • EAN: 9781541600447
  • Categories: Ancient - GreeceAncient and ClassicalPoetry

More books to explore

Book Cover for: The Odyssey, Homer
Book Cover for: How to Be: Life Lessons from the Early Greeks, Adam Nicolson
Book Cover for: Lives of the Eminent Philosophers: By Diogenes Laertius, Diogenes Laertius
Book Cover for: Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay, Anne Carson
Book Cover for: Music: A Subversive History, Ted Gioia
Book Cover for: Philip and Alexander: Kings and Conquerors, Adrian Goldsworthy
Book Cover for: Venus and Aphrodite: A Biography of Desire, Bettany Hughes
Book Cover for: Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures, and Innovations, Mary Beard
Book Cover for: The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: An Extraordinary New Journey Through History's Greatest Treasures, Bettany Hughes
Book Cover for: Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece, Paul Cartledge
Book Cover for: The Search for Atlantis: A History of Plato's Ideal State, Steve P. Kershaw
Book Cover for: The Celestial Hunter, Roberto Calasso
Book Cover for: Hearing Homer's Song: The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry, Robert Kanigel
Book Cover for: The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD, Charles Freeman
Book Cover for: The Parthenon: Revised Edition, Mary Beard

About the Author

Robin Lane Fox is an emeritus fellow at New College, Oxford. His books include The Invention of Medicine, Augustine (winner of the major Wolfson History Prize), and The Classical World. He lives near Oxford, England.

More books by Robin Lane Fox

Book Cover for: The Invention of Medicine: From Homer to Hippocrates, Robin Lane Fox
Book Cover for: Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian, Robin Lane Fox
Book Cover for: Travelling Heroes: In the Epic Age of Homer, Robin Lane Fox
Book Cover for: Augustine: Conversions to Confessions, Robin Lane Fox
Book Cover for: Thoughtful Gardening, Robin Lane Fox

Praise for this book

"Lane Fox is an Oxford don, and his book the result of a lifetime's dedication to the Iliad -- personally and professionally. As such it is rigorously academic, but also winningly idiosyncratic.... This is a compelling and impressive work."--Times (UK)
"This is a compelling and impressive work."--Sunday Times (UK)
"Excellent ... This book is the expression of [Fox's] lifelong love for the poem."--Country Life
"An engaging, scholarly commentary."--The Oldie
"A lucid, scholarly exploration into an immortal work."--Kirkus
"A bold reassessment of how [the Iliad] came to life." --The Spectator (UK)
"Homer and His Iliad is rich, imaginative, perceptive and gorgeously written."--Literary Review
"A masterly survey of the Iliad, its majesty, its pathos and its unparalleled progression from wrath to pity."--History Today
"In his magisterial new book Homer and His Iliad, the eminent British classicist Robin Lane Fox reaches exegetical heights."--Bloomberg Opinion
"A spirited, erudite argument."--Booklist
"Valuable... [an] earnest appreciation."--Wall Street Journal
"Fiercely argued."--Financial Times
"The product of a lifetime's contemplation of study... a stirring introduction to the sometimes alien Homeric world." --The Spectator (UK)
"An enlightening account.... Combining a historian's meticulous methodology with a lifelong appreciation of the Iliad, Lane Fox presents a thorough reassessment of the poem and a moving interrogation of its themes of pathos, pity, and irony. It's a rewarding investigation."--Publishers Weekly
"Fox's book is as fiercely intelligent and scholarly... a marvelous grappling with a poem and his masterpiece."--Open Letters Review
"Treasured, entertaining, and knowledgeable."--Shelf Awareness
"The best book on the Iliad in years and an exemplary work of historical and literary criticism."--The Washington Examiner
"Lane Fox weighs in elegantly on both streams of Homeric commentary, the academic and the aesthetic, drawing on his decades of scholarly familiarity and classroom experience with the poem."--Washington Independent Review of Books
"State-of-the-art discussion of the date and origin of the Homeric Iliad, melded with a fine personal account of the impact of the poem as a profound meditation on our human condition in what remains a dangerous world."--Bryn Mawr Classical Review