Christopher Logue

A remarkable hybrid of translation, adaptation, and invention Picture the east Aegean sea by night, And on a beach aslant its shimmering Upwards of 50,000 men Asleep like spoons beside their lethal Fleet. “Your life at every instant up for— / Gone. / And, candidly, who gives a toss? / Your heart beats strong. Your spirit grips,” writes Christopher Logue in his original version of Homer’s Iliad, the uncanny “translation of translations” that won ecstatic and unparalleled acclaim as “the best translation of Homer since Pope’s” (The New York Review of Books). Logue’s account of Homer’s Iliad is a radical reimagining and reconfiguration of Homer’s tale of warfare, human folly, and the power of the gods in language and verse that is emphatically modern and “possessed of a very terrible beauty” (Slate). Illness prevented him from bringing his version of the Iliad to completion, but enough survives in notebooks and letters to assemble a compilation that includes the previously published volumes War Music, Kings, The Husbands, All Day Permanent Red, and Cold Calls, along with previously unpublished material, in one final illuminating volume arranged by his friend and fellow poet Christopher Reid. The result, War Music, comes as near as possible to representing the poet’s complete vision and confirms what his admirers have long known: that “Logue’s Homer is likely to endure as one of the great long poems of the twentieth century” (The Times Literary Supplement).

An Account of Homer's Iliad

War Music

In his brilliant rendering of eight books of Homer's Iliad, Logue here retells some of the most evocative episodes of the war classic, including the death of Patroclus and Achilles's fateful return to battle, that sealed the doom of Troy. Compulsively readable, Logue's poetry flies off the page, and his compelling descriptions of the horrors of war have a surreal, dreamlike quality that has been compared to the films of Kurosawa. Retaining the great poem's story line but rewriting every incident, Logue brings the Trojan War to life for modern audiences.

An Account of Books 1-4 and 16-19 of Homer's Iliad

A new installment of the author's rewritten translation of Homer's Iliad covers the first clash of the armies, in which the doomed Hector achieves the height of his powers during the rise of the Greek army. Reprint.

The First Battle Scenes of Homer's Iliad Rewritten

All Day Permanent Red

Helen, the world's most beautiful woman, the wife of Lord Menelaos of Sparta, left Greece in the company of Paris, the son of Priam, King of Troy. To repossess her, a thousand Greek ships sailed to Troy. Nine years have passed. The Greeks have not achieved their aim. Indeed, after a quarrel between Achilles their leader and Agamemnon their king, the Trojans, led by Paris's brother, Prince Hector, have driven the Greeks off the plain of Troy and back behind the palisade protecting their ships. Achilles refuses to help them. It is night . . .The scene is set for Cold Calls, the fifth and penultimate instalment of Logue's Homer, an ongoing project - a piece of performance-art for the page rather than the stage - which has taken several decades to unfold, and has been described by Derek Mahon as 'Less a translation than an adaptation. Less an adaptation, in fact, than an original poem of considerable power.'

War Music Continued

Cold Calls

This text contains the first three volumes of Christopher Logue's recomposition of Homer's Iliad - Kings, The Husbands and War Music.

An Account of Books 1-4 and 16-19 of Homer's Illiad

20 Poems Based on Pablo Neruda's "Los Cantos D'amores"

The Man who Told His Love

Homer

A lost little kitten is taken in by a family of mice and brought up to think it is a mouse till one day two children decide to befriend it.

Patrocleia

Devil, Maggot and Son

All Day Permanent Red is the fourth instalment of Christopher Logue's celebrated account of the Iliad, the first three of which were collected in Homer: War Music (2001). In this new episode, Logue focuses upon the various battle scenes of the classic text, further testifying to the standing of these translations as a modern landmark in their own right.'The best translation of Homer since Pope's.' Garry Wills, New York Review of Books'Perhaps Logue's greatest achievement is his ability to make us see the Trojan War as Homer's audience would have done. We hear the music of war and it is thrilling. We see the cinematography of the battlefield and it is astonishing. We marvel at the strength and superhuman courage of heroes and, despite ourselves, celebrate their victories and mourn their losses. This is, without doubt, one of the landmarks of twentieth-century poetry - a work of powerful resonance and relevance that will continue to dazzle familiar as well as new readers.' James O'Brien, The Tablet

Fluff

New Numbers

Prince Charming is the story of Christopher Logue: one of our great poets and literary mavericks, part of a circle that included Kenneth Tynan and Richard Ingrams. It tells, in frank detail and with eloquent relish, of its author's South England childhood and schooldays; his post-war stint in the army, which ended in disgrace and imprisonment; his years in Paris, during which he was involved in publishing Beckett and wrote pornography; his return to England, where he grew serious about politics, was imprisoned for the second time (as a member of the anti-nuclear Committee of 100), offended T.S. Eliot, participated in the new satire movement, promoted the public performance of poetry, and invented the poster poem. These pages give us unofficial glimpses of the likes of Alexander Trocchi, Maurice Girodias, Lindsay Anderson, Nell Dunn, Peter Cook and the charismatic Pauline Boty. There are enough characters among the less well-known - from the author's father to the Portobello Road street-trader 'Minky' Warren - to stock a lively novel.

A Memoir

Prince Charming

A modern retelling of books three and four of Homer's "Iliad" features Helen of Troy and her husbands Menelaus and Paris in a contemporary English poem

An Account of Books 3 and 4 of Homer's Iliad

The Husbands

In this series, a contemporary poet advocates a poet of the past or present whom they have particularly admired. By their selection of verses and by the personal and critical reactions they express, the selectors offer intriguing insight into their own work.

Christopher Logue

Books

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