{"product_id":"9780571274185","title":"Memorial by Alice Oswald","description":"Matthew Arnold praised the Iliad  for its 'nobility', as has everyone ever since -- but ancient critics  praised it for its enargeia, its 'bright unbearable reality' (the  word used when gods come to earth not in disguise but as themselves).  To retrieve the poem's energy, Alice Oswald has stripped away its story,  and her account focuses by turns on Homer's extended similes and on the  brief 'biographies' of the minor war-dead, most of whom are little more  than names, but each of whom lives and dies unforgettably - and  unforgotten - in the copiousness of Homer's glance. 'The Iliad  is an oral poem. This translation presents it as an attempt - in the  aftermath of the Trojan War - to remember people's names and lives  without the use of writing. I hope it will have its own coherence as a  series of memories and similes laid side by side: an antiphonal account  of man in his world... compatible with the spirit of oral poetry, which  was never stable but always adapting itself to a new audience, as if its  language, unlike written language, was still alive and kicking.' -  Alice Oswald\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Paperback \/ softback","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201805516978,"sku":"9780571274185","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/products\/9780571274185.jpg?v=1705426788","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/9780571274185","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}