Homer in English

'The Iliad and Odyssey,' writes Professor George Steiner, 'are perennially active in the pulse of the English languages, in the texts and contexts of Anglo-Saxon self-definition; these translations and variations on Homeric themes offer nothing less than 'a concise chronicle of English'.
From Lydgate's Troy Book, Chaucer's Troylus and Criseyde and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida to Pound's Cantos, Joyce's Ulysses and Derek Walcott's Omeros, Homer has been the most translated author and presence in our literature and languages (such as American and Afro-Caribbean). Homer has elicited a fantastic wealth and quality of response, from Hobbes to Gladstone, from T. E. Lawrence to Robert Graves. Homeric translations by Chapman, Dryden, Pope, Shelley and Christopher Logue are masterpieces in their own right. This superb selection assembles highlights and representative moments from six and a half centuries.