Гомер – Troy: The epic battle as told in Homer’s Iliad (страница 1)
TROY
The epic battle as told in Homer’s
translated by
Samuel Butler
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollins
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
This eBook published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2018
Life & Times section © HarperCollins
Gerard Cheshire asserts his moral rights as author of the Life & Times section
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases adapted from
Cover image © Shutterstock
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780008275952
Ebook Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 9780008275969
Version: 2018-02-20
Contents
History of William Collins
Life & Times
Book I
Book II
Book III
Book IV
Book V
Book VI
Book VII
Book VIII
Book IX
Book X
Book XI
Book XII
Book XIII
Book XIV
Book XV
Book XVI
Book XVII
Book XVIII
Book XIX
Book XX
Book XXI
Book XXII
Book XXIII
Book XXIV
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases
In 1819, millworker William Collins from Glasgow, Scotland, set up a company for printing and publishing pamphlets, sermons, hymn books, and prayer books. That company was Collins and was to mark the birth of HarperCollins Publishers as we know it today. The long tradition of Collins dictionary publishing can be traced back to the first dictionary William co-published in 1825,
Soon after, William published the first Collins novel; however, it was the time of the Long Depression, where harvests were poor, prices were high, potato crops had failed, and violence was erupting in Europe. As a result, many factories across the country were forced to close down and William chose to retire in 1846, partly due to the hardships he was facing.
Aged 30, William’s son, William II, took over the business. A keen humanitarian with a warm heart and a generous spirit, William II was truly ‘Victorian’ in his outlook. He introduced new, up-to-date steam presses and published affordable editions of Shakespeare’s works and
A new demand for educational books meant that success came with the publication of travel books, scientific books, encyclopedias, and dictionaries. This demand to be educated led to the later publication of atlases, and Collins also held the monopoly on scripture writing at the time.
In the 1860s Collins began to expand and diversify and the idea of ‘books for the millions’ was developed, although the phrase wasn’t coined until 1907. Affordable editions of classical literature were published, and in 1903 Collins introduced 10 titles in their Collins Handy Illustrated Pocket Novels. These proved so popular that a few years later this had increased to an output of 50 volumes, selling nearly half a million in their year of publication. In the same year, The Everyman’s Library was also instituted, with the idea of publishing an affordable library of the most important classical works, biographies, religious and philosophical treatments, plays, poems, travel, and adventure. This series eclipsed all competition at the time, and the introduction of paperback books in the 1950s helped to open that market and marked a high point in the industry.
HarperCollins is and has always been a champion of the classics, and the current Collins Classics series follows in this tradition – publishing classical literature that is affordable and available to all. Beautifully packaged, highly collectible, and intended to be reread and enjoyed at every opportunity.
Homer and his Works
Homer, to whom
Homer lived on the Aegean coast of what is now Turkey, but was then a part of the Greek Empire. The Ancient Greek cosmology was filled with mythological stories that were taught to children by way of explaining the world around them. All manner of gods and monsters were central to the stories and the Greek islands and mountains served as realms in which different scenarios were played out. Intertwined with the mythology were legendary tales of significant historical characters, loosely based on truth. This all added up to a complex and vast folklore. It was this folklore that Homer, either in the individual or collective sense, drew from in his epic poems, which include the
As for Homer himself, it is a matter of considerable contention between Classical scholars as to whether he ever existed and when. There is very scant evidence available, so it seems likely that he may be a mythical figure, an old father time, grandfather to the nation. As a result any literary works of significance were attributed to him, simply because it was impossible to know who the real author or authors were. As there was a great oral tradition of story telling in Ancient Greece, it is more likely that the epic poems were developed and refined over generations by many orators. Perhaps a politician realized their worth as pedagogic texts and ordered scholars to document them for that very purpose. Or perhaps a master orator, or rhapsode, had them documented, so that his apprentices could travel to different regions of the Greek empire and recite the exact same texts.
The central focus of
The central character in