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Alice Oswald

Memorial Hardcover – 6 Oct. 2011

by Alice Oswald (Author)

4.6 115 ratings

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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

Print length

96 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Faber & Faber
Publication date

6 Oct. 2011
Dimensions

14.5 x 1.2 x 22.2 cm
ISBN-10

0571274161
ISBN-13

978-0571274161
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Alice Oswald
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Product description

Review

'Brilliant in its own right . . . has 15 or so perfect touches that show Oswald to be a considerable poet.' -- Craig Raine, Guardian Books of the Year >> '[One of] the two most impressive books of poetry I've read this year ... this brilliantly animates [The Iliad] as it creates a poignant new lament for war dead.' -- Andrew Motion, TLS >> 'A wonderful book, the most profound reimagining of Homer since Derek Walcott's Omeros.' -- Peter Thonemann, TLS >> 'Takes off from The Iliad to find a brilliance and resonance all of its own.' -- Anne Chisholm, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year >> 'An uncompromising rewriting of The Iliad, stripping away its epic narrative to foreground its fallen foot-soldiers.' -- Josephine Balmer, The Times Books of the Year>> 'An elegy of quite extraordinary power.' Andrew Motion, The Times Books of the Year >> 'A deft and plangent reworking of Homer's Iliad.' --Sarah Crown, Guardian Books of the Year

Book Description

A glitteringly original new poem which is also a version of Homer's Iliad, from prize-winning poet Alice Oswald

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Faber & Faber; First Edition (6 Oct. 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 96 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0571274161
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0571274161
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 14.5 x 1.2 x 22.2 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 896,276 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 713 in Translation & Interpretation Reference
- 9,777 in Literary Theory & Movements
- 17,221 in Poetry (Books)

Customer reviews:
4.6 115 ratings

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E. Prestwich

Stunningly beautiful

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 December 2011

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This is a work of astonishing imaginative power and humanity. It's written in a direct, vivid style that makes it come across with complete clarity the first time you look at it, but it repays repeated rereading for its emotional richness and for sheer pleasure in the beauty of its language. I've read it several times in the last few weeks.

Instead of telling the story of the Iliad, Oswald concentrates on listing the dead, giving us a glimpse of each man's life as she tells us how he died. The sense of loss can be heartbreakingly intense and her pictures of the horror and madness of war are devastating, but the book is anything but depressing: although Memorial repeatedly shows us life in its moment of extinction and shows us so much of its cruelty, somehow it makes life's beauty and energy and its gentler qualities of love and compassion shine out more brightly than anything else I've read recently. That's why I've been drawn back to it so much.

The glimpses of lost lives are interspersed with condensed versions of Homer's epic similes, freed from their original contexts to become wider meditations on different aspects of life. The poem ends with a series of these similes. The two line one comparing tiny dried up old men speaking pure light to crickets leaning on their elbows in the hedges is as beautiful as anything I've ever read.

3 people found this helpful

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William Jordan

a remarkable achievement

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 September 2013

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Memorial gives us short biographies of heroes of Homer's Iliad - drawn from Homer, descriptions of their deaths, and similes Homer uses to describe their deaths. Alice Oswald sees this as a translation of the atmosphere of Homer, without the narrative.

Remarkably enough, this is very successful. It's many years since I read Homer, but this seems amazingly true to the spirit of much of the poem I suspect there is more to Homer by way of world-view (shame culture etc) over and above the main narrative that is missing here. Indeed, there's a world view, as Alice Oswald move into the final pages with a few similes of wider import, not linked to individual deaths, but which relate to the whole of what's been described. These might suggest something slightly different about war - but I found it all remarkable convincing and would strongly recommend it to others.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 December 2011

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I was persuaded to order a copy of this book by a very positive review in a newspaper but was not really sure what I was going to get. In fact it is a stripped down meditation on the Iliad responding to the many many deaths of the also-rans, the largely marginal figures in the story. The accounts of their deaths are brief almost incantatory cries of despair at the futility of war and the hollow-ness of nobility. Cumulatively they become something very powerful that has the immediacy and imaginative force of a great war memorial - one of the most affecting pieces of writing that I have read for a very long time and something to which I am sure I will return many times. I am in awe at what has been accomplished in this work.

10 people found this helpful

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Mr. Robert E. Hardy

An elegy for the fallen

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 April 2017

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I came across a snatch of this on a serendipitous radio listening and I wanted to hear the rest. I love Christopher Logue's robust transliterations of the Illiad, and this is to my ear, the chorus's lament to his poems, an elegiac listing of names of the fallen and blunt hard statements of cause, interjected with beautiful free poetic translations of Homer's evocations of the field and landscape of battle through his smilies. A bewitching piece that has you reading it aloud before you notice that that is what you are doing.

2 people found this helpful

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James R. Modrall

Original and moving

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 April 2021

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What a beautiful idea - by focusing on the characters that readers of the Illiad normally skim over, Oswald creates something more personal and moving than the original.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 October 2012

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This is the best thing I have bought in a very long time. I heard Alice Oswald read from Memorial in person at a festival recently and was stunned by the power of the work and her rendition. I had never heard of her before. I bought several copies of the book for gifts (they all sold out at the reading) and when I discovered the recorded version I ordered it immediately. I am transported every time I listen to this exceptional poem. I remember hearing the young Seamus Heaney many years ago. This is the same feeling.

3 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

An extraordinarily powerful piece of writing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 January 2019

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Alice Oswald was recommended to me by a tutor at Cambridge University, where I have just started a Master's in creative writing. Memorial is an extended poem, reviving the spirit of the Iliad, and it is beautiful and moving. I know I should say more, but I have an assignment to write for my course, so I'll leave it there. I recommend it to you.

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Dustmite

Powerful, rich, bleak, profound

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 April 2013

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Two of the things which most impress the majority of modern readers of the Iliad are the death scenes given to the most minor of the fighting men and the splendid similes.

Isolating just those two elements, casting them into well-chosen English verse and turning them into a "memorial" in the manner of a Homeric catalogue, Alice Oswald has created something really very powerful. It is almost like the Iliad has been left in a slow-cooker until it has reduced down to a very rich Iliad sauce.

5 people found this helpful

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Memorial Hardcover – 6 Oct. 2011

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