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War Music: An Account of Books 16 to 19 of Homer's Iliad
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.
Paperback
First published May 7, 1981
About the author
Christopher Logue
83 books42 followersChristopher Logue, CBE was an English poet associated with the British Poetry Revival. He also wrote for the theatre and cinema as well as acting in a number of films. His two screenplays are Savage Messiah and The End of Arthur's Marriage. He was also a long-term contributor to Private Eye magazine, as well as writing for the Merlin literary journal of Alexander Trocchi. He won the 2005 Whitbread Poetry Award for Cold Calls.
His early popularity was marked by the release of a loose adaptation of Pablo Neruda's "Twenty Love Poems", later released as an extended play recording, "Red Bird: Jazz and Poetry", backed by a Jazz group led by Tony Kinsey.
One of his poems, "Be Not Too Hard" was set to music by Donovan Leach, and made popular by Joan Baez, from her 1967 album "Joan". Donovan's version appeared in the film "Poor Cow"(1967).
His major poetical work was an ongoing project to render Homer's Iliad into a modernist idiom. This work is published in a number of small books, usually equating to two or three books of the original text. (The volume entitled Homer: War Music was shortlisted for the 2002 International Griffin Poetry Prize.) He also published an autobiography called Prince Charming (1999).
His lines tend to be short, pithy and frequently political, as in Song of Autobiography:
"I, Christopher Logue, was baptized the year
Many thousands of Englishmen
Fists clenched, their bellies empty,
Walked day and night on the capital city."
He wrote the couplet that is sung at the beginning and end of the 1965 film A High Wind in Jamaica, the screenplay for Savage Messiah (1972), a television version of Antigone (1962), and a short play for the TV series The Wednesday Play titled The End of Arthur's Marriage (1965).
He also appeared in a number of films as an actor, most notably as Cardinal Richelieu in Ken Russell's 1971 film The Devils and as the spaghetti-eating fanatic in Terry Gilliam's 1977 film Jabberwocky.
Logue wrote for the Olympia Press under the pseudonym, Count Palmiro Vicarion, including a pornographic novel, Lust.
________________________________________
source: wikipedia.org
His early popularity was marked by the release of a loose adaptation of Pablo Neruda's "Twenty Love Poems", later released as an extended play recording, "Red Bird: Jazz and Poetry", backed by a Jazz group led by Tony Kinsey.
One of his poems, "Be Not Too Hard" was set to music by Donovan Leach, and made popular by Joan Baez, from her 1967 album "Joan". Donovan's version appeared in the film "Poor Cow"(1967).
His major poetical work was an ongoing project to render Homer's Iliad into a modernist idiom. This work is published in a number of small books, usually equating to two or three books of the original text. (The volume entitled Homer: War Music was shortlisted for the 2002 International Griffin Poetry Prize.) He also published an autobiography called Prince Charming (1999).
His lines tend to be short, pithy and frequently political, as in Song of Autobiography:
"I, Christopher Logue, was baptized the year
Many thousands of Englishmen
Fists clenched, their bellies empty,
Walked day and night on the capital city."
He wrote the couplet that is sung at the beginning and end of the 1965 film A High Wind in Jamaica, the screenplay for Savage Messiah (1972), a television version of Antigone (1962), and a short play for the TV series The Wednesday Play titled The End of Arthur's Marriage (1965).
He also appeared in a number of films as an actor, most notably as Cardinal Richelieu in Ken Russell's 1971 film The Devils and as the spaghetti-eating fanatic in Terry Gilliam's 1977 film Jabberwocky.
Logue wrote for the Olympia Press under the pseudonym, Count Palmiro Vicarion, including a pornographic novel, Lust.
________________________________________
source: wikipedia.org
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
August 4, 2022
This is not a translation. This is also not NOT a translation.
What it is, is a fantastic piece of poetry - a snippet of the Iliad which functions as a mini Iliad transformed into something wholly new and rhythmically modern whilst also being so wonderfully ancient.
The flow of the words conveys the poetry of the Iliad in a way that I struggle to find in modern translations, the shift between short, simple sentences and these hugely lengthy, flowy paragraph is just genius. I love this so so much.
I would recommend it to anyone who loves poetry, anyone who loves the Iliad, anyone who really liked Miller’s “A Song of Achilles” and wants to read the Iliad without reading the whole Iliad, anyone who is vaguely interested in warfare and most English teachers because this poem/book has RANGE.
What it is, is a fantastic piece of poetry - a snippet of the Iliad which functions as a mini Iliad transformed into something wholly new and rhythmically modern whilst also being so wonderfully ancient.
The flow of the words conveys the poetry of the Iliad in a way that I struggle to find in modern translations, the shift between short, simple sentences and these hugely lengthy, flowy paragraph is just genius. I love this so so much.
I would recommend it to anyone who loves poetry, anyone who loves the Iliad, anyone who really liked Miller’s “A Song of Achilles” and wants to read the Iliad without reading the whole Iliad, anyone who is vaguely interested in warfare and most English teachers because this poem/book has RANGE.
April 24, 2018
War Music: An Account Of Books 16 To 19 Of Homer's Iliad
Christopher Logue
This is not another translation of the Iliad. Nor is it a complete Iliad. Rather, the author has merged existing translations for Books (chapters) 16-19, omitted what he felt was redundant or unnecessary, and then updated to modern language.
Book 16 now becomes Patrocleia; Books 17 and 18 become GBH, an abbreviation for Grievous Bodily Harm; and Book 19 becomes Pax.
With an Iliad translation, one expects to see lines of text numbered for easy reference. For example, in the Richmond Lattimore work, the opening paragraph, "Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus ..." might be cited as 1, 1-7. That would be chapter one, lines one thru seven.
Logue does not do that, so it is sometimes not trivial to find and compare passages that attempt to describe the same thing or event or discussion.
I found it more productive to simply read Patrocleia and then book 16; read GBH and then books 17 and 18; and finally Pax and book 19. This proved less complex and more satisfying, albeit, somewhat slow. Several of the passages I had highlighted in Lattimore did not even appear in Logue.
Both stories were done beautifully, with grace and a poetic style and feel. Sometimes I liked Lattimore a little better, eg: Patrocleia and Pax; sometimes Logue, eg: GBH. But one could easily think just the opposite.
Christopher Logue
This is not another translation of the Iliad. Nor is it a complete Iliad. Rather, the author has merged existing translations for Books (chapters) 16-19, omitted what he felt was redundant or unnecessary, and then updated to modern language.
Book 16 now becomes Patrocleia; Books 17 and 18 become GBH, an abbreviation for Grievous Bodily Harm; and Book 19 becomes Pax.
With an Iliad translation, one expects to see lines of text numbered for easy reference. For example, in the Richmond Lattimore work, the opening paragraph, "Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus ..." might be cited as 1, 1-7. That would be chapter one, lines one thru seven.
Logue does not do that, so it is sometimes not trivial to find and compare passages that attempt to describe the same thing or event or discussion.
I found it more productive to simply read Patrocleia and then book 16; read GBH and then books 17 and 18; and finally Pax and book 19. This proved less complex and more satisfying, albeit, somewhat slow. Several of the passages I had highlighted in Lattimore did not even appear in Logue.
Both stories were done beautifully, with grace and a poetic style and feel. Sometimes I liked Lattimore a little better, eg: Patrocleia and Pax; sometimes Logue, eg: GBH. But one could easily think just the opposite.
October 23, 2026
Interesting to read a more anglicised version of my favourite chapters, far more Christianised than I expected
July 26, 2014
I put these Logue Homers on my 'epics' shelf which is *not for modern works* -- to express my sense they are the genuine article. Achilles in his science-fiction armour creates for us the experience Homer's audience might have had. What I adore about Logue's Homer is his inventive fidelity to Homer's artistic techniques. Not that I know Greek (I tried once. I got through the grammar) -- neither did Christopher Logue. I'm a fan of Pope's Iliad and Chapman's, which I haven't finished although I agree it's unbeaten in English. I found these Logues in George Steiner's great collection of translations, renditions and riffs, Homer in English. George Steiner, whom I rather worship, says, "Christopher Logue's fragments out of the Iliad are an act of genius," and describes them as "Logue's transmutations of the Iliad into 'now'..."
Still, years later I dock a star. For the first installment, War Music in the '88 Faber of 84 pages that only has 'Patrocleia/GBH/Pax': death of Patroclus and afterwards.
It is the most tremendous combat description. Fans of combat writing ought to try this, whether or not they think they like poetry.
It has the punchy shortness of modernity:
“Run to the Fleet. Give Wondersulk our news.
His love is dead. His armour gone.
Prince Hector has the corpse.
And as an afterthought, that we are lost.”
It has (best! best! to me now) a faith in the ancient art and is unafraid to follow Homer. Not only in the epic similes but the epic second person. I don’t know enough about epic second person: I just googled it and found this on a blog:
“The narrative shift from third-person omniscient to the second-person address to Patroclus is inherent in the original Greek text. You see these inexplicable shifts all the time in Homer; some translators just gloss over them and smooth the narrative into a single point of view, but so doing causes the text to lose some of its power: how effective is it, after all, that the poet directly addresses Patroclus as the warrior faces his death? The pathos is pumping at that moment, and I think we have that narrative shift to thank.”
http://humanitiesteacherman.wordpress...
To which I say, amen. Logue is not a glosser-over, on the grounds that such things are strange in English. If I tell you once, in the heat of the moment, the poet calls Patroclus ‘darling’, that, out of context, might sound strange. But it’s Homer, and gives a vitality, a sense of being present. Need the poet hide his involvement in his story? his suspense at the plot and his emotions?
But that brings me to my but. Does it have a heart? In spite of this tender habit of talking to Achilles and to Hector, neither of them – in this first installment – was likeable, and I like to like my Achilles and my Hector. Nobody in the poem seems to like each other, either, and I’m afraid I didn’t feel Achilles’ grief. It’s easy to despise Ajax, but isn’t he celebrated in Homer, even if he is ‘as thick as the wall’? I am kept at a distance, and that has not been my experience of Homer. Of course, this may be a Logue experience instead – he has every right to part ways with Homer where he lists. Let’s see in the next sections, which I never read.
Still, years later I dock a star. For the first installment, War Music in the '88 Faber of 84 pages that only has 'Patrocleia/GBH/Pax': death of Patroclus and afterwards.
It is the most tremendous combat description. Fans of combat writing ought to try this, whether or not they think they like poetry.
It has the punchy shortness of modernity:
“Run to the Fleet. Give Wondersulk our news.
His love is dead. His armour gone.
Prince Hector has the corpse.
And as an afterthought, that we are lost.”
It has (best! best! to me now) a faith in the ancient art and is unafraid to follow Homer. Not only in the epic similes but the epic second person. I don’t know enough about epic second person: I just googled it and found this on a blog:
“The narrative shift from third-person omniscient to the second-person address to Patroclus is inherent in the original Greek text. You see these inexplicable shifts all the time in Homer; some translators just gloss over them and smooth the narrative into a single point of view, but so doing causes the text to lose some of its power: how effective is it, after all, that the poet directly addresses Patroclus as the warrior faces his death? The pathos is pumping at that moment, and I think we have that narrative shift to thank.”
http://humanitiesteacherman.wordpress...
To which I say, amen. Logue is not a glosser-over, on the grounds that such things are strange in English. If I tell you once, in the heat of the moment, the poet calls Patroclus ‘darling’, that, out of context, might sound strange. But it’s Homer, and gives a vitality, a sense of being present. Need the poet hide his involvement in his story? his suspense at the plot and his emotions?
But that brings me to my but. Does it have a heart? In spite of this tender habit of talking to Achilles and to Hector, neither of them – in this first installment – was likeable, and I like to like my Achilles and my Hector. Nobody in the poem seems to like each other, either, and I’m afraid I didn’t feel Achilles’ grief. It’s easy to despise Ajax, but isn’t he celebrated in Homer, even if he is ‘as thick as the wall’? I am kept at a distance, and that has not been my experience of Homer. Of course, this may be a Logue experience instead – he has every right to part ways with Homer where he lists. Let’s see in the next sections, which I never read.
November 20, 2015
phenom, basically. I just want to quote it all. such a gorgeous translation.
July 18, 2024
This was actually much better and more interesting than I expected. I didn't know a whole lot about Logue coming into this, so I thought it might be a somewhat lackluster reformulation of this section of the Iliad but in fact I found a rather virtuoso rendition of a very familiar story. It wasn't at all tainted by a modern perspective like I suspected it might, nor was it distorted in a direction I thought I might find unseemly. Instead, it was a quite well-thought out--despite Logue knowing no Greek--and interesting take on the Iliad.
I enjoyed seeing these moments (the 3 books) retold through a different lens and I enjoyed the poetry of it. This section happened to contain a most personally memorable passage, when Apollo thwarts Patroclus' advance on the Trojans and leaves him to die. This scene, in particular, was done very well with a break in typesetting and oversized font that made it all the more apposite. I would class this alongside Oswald's Memorial as a masterful reimagining of the Iliad.
I'd recommend this to all Iliad readers who can appreciate the poetry of it.
I enjoyed seeing these moments (the 3 books) retold through a different lens and I enjoyed the poetry of it. This section happened to contain a most personally memorable passage, when Apollo thwarts Patroclus' advance on the Trojans and leaves him to die. This scene, in particular, was done very well with a break in typesetting and oversized font that made it all the more apposite. I would class this alongside Oswald's Memorial as a masterful reimagining of the Iliad.
I'd recommend this to all Iliad readers who can appreciate the poetry of it.
August 10, 2022
I accidentally got the shortened version of War Music that covers only Books 16-19 of the Iliad, so that's what I am reviewing here. On the strength of this small part of the book, I am going to buy myself a copy of the full version. It is gorgeous. Full of phrases to treasure, like:
"Or those with everything to lose, the kings,
Asleep like pistols in red velvet."
"Noon. In the foothills
Melons emerge from their green hidings.
Heat."
There is a wonderful balance of still moments like these above, and momentum in action scenes, and both are captured in beautiful phrases. I was sceptical about Logue's declining to use the famous stock phrases like "rosy fingered dawn" and "wine-dark sea," but he is so good at making his own descriptive phrases that I didn't miss those familiar ones. Judging by these three Books, this version of The Iliad is modern and ancient, readable and brilliant. I can't wait to read the whole thing.
"Or those with everything to lose, the kings,
Asleep like pistols in red velvet."
"Noon. In the foothills
Melons emerge from their green hidings.
Heat."
There is a wonderful balance of still moments like these above, and momentum in action scenes, and both are captured in beautiful phrases. I was sceptical about Logue's declining to use the famous stock phrases like "rosy fingered dawn" and "wine-dark sea," but he is so good at making his own descriptive phrases that I didn't miss those familiar ones. Judging by these three Books, this version of The Iliad is modern and ancient, readable and brilliant. I can't wait to read the whole thing.
December 6, 2019
WOW!
I came across Logue in The TLS, a double page spread of poetry that I was going to quickly skip over as I didn't feel like reading that much modern poetry which I was sure I wouldn't enjoy. Then, before I turned the page, my eyes had scanned a couple of lines and I stopped. That was good! Let's read the lot and see what it's like. I was blown away! This guy was good! More than good. Where can I get more?
And so to War Music, that I class as one of the best pieces of 20th century English poetry.
I came across Logue in The TLS, a double page spread of poetry that I was going to quickly skip over as I didn't feel like reading that much modern poetry which I was sure I wouldn't enjoy. Then, before I turned the page, my eyes had scanned a couple of lines and I stopped. That was good! Let's read the lot and see what it's like. I was blown away! This guy was good! More than good. Where can I get more?
And so to War Music, that I class as one of the best pieces of 20th century English poetry.
June 29, 2023
(I only read book 16, so these are my thoughts on that book solely)
tears in my fucking eyes, THIS IS BEAUTIFUL. BLOODY BEAUTIFUL.
I’ve never been as immersed as I have been reading a rendition of the Iliad. This shook me and hooked me to the core, I will be searching for the full version to read right now.
tears in my fucking eyes, THIS IS BEAUTIFUL. BLOODY BEAUTIFUL.
I’ve never been as immersed as I have been reading a rendition of the Iliad. This shook me and hooked me to the core, I will be searching for the full version to read right now.
November 11, 2018
please read this account of books 16 - 19
November 22, 2021
A beautiful, muscular retelling of specific books in the Iliad. Some amazing lines. Fantastic images.
February 12, 2025
ohhhhh my fucking god
February 17, 2026
stunning.
June 7, 2026
Different from the same section on the one-volume War Music. Will have to check/compare when I reread the complete work. RIP to a great poet.
May 3, 2011
Turns out I like my ancient lays either fully rounded and sonorous (Heaney's 'Beowulf') or completely remodelled (Zachary Mason's 'The Lost Books of the Odyssey). Logue's retelling of one of the central episodes of the Iliad - where Patroclus takes Achilles' armor and is killed by Hector - hits some middle note that just didn't work for me.
Some passages I did enjoy - the battle scenes over the narrative ones:
But I'm going to be honest. I didn't like the volume because I didn't like Logue's portrayal of Hector. In the Iliad, Hector is the noblest of the heroes - loyal son, loving husband, caring father, brave warrior, shepherd of his people. Logue's Hector is weaselly, pusillanimous - ignoble. I'm all for reading against the grain, but in this - one of my most dearly-held stories - I prefer the old forms.
Some passages I did enjoy - the battle scenes over the narrative ones:
Patroclus fought like dreaming:
His head thrown back, his mouth - wide as a shrieking mask -
Sucked at the air to nourish his infuriated mind
And seemed to draw the Trojans onto him,
To lock them round his waist, red water, washed against his chest,
To lay their tired necks against his sword like birds.
But I'm going to be honest. I didn't like the volume because I didn't like Logue's portrayal of Hector. In the Iliad, Hector is the noblest of the heroes - loyal son, loving husband, caring father, brave warrior, shepherd of his people. Logue's Hector is weaselly, pusillanimous - ignoble. I'm all for reading against the grain, but in this - one of my most dearly-held stories - I prefer the old forms.
August 1, 2023
La première partie est poussive mais j'ai bien aimé la seconde. De belles descriptions et des images percutantes. Le thème quant à lui... faut aimer l'Iliade (j'adore) et les descriptions crues et violentes de combats (j'aime moins).
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October 5, 2015Trigger warning: contains graphic scenes of Bronze Age warfare and petulance.
Also some remarkably good verse, with the kind of sure-footed free verse I like best.
Also some remarkably good verse, with the kind of sure-footed free verse I like best.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews