Fagles combines his talents as poet and scholar to present this masterful, elegant translation of the stirring story of the Trojan War and the rage of Achilles. The title Iliad, is not an adequate description of the contents of the poem, which is best summed up in its opening line: 'the rage of Peleus' son Achilles.' The incident that provoked Achilles' rage took place in the tenth and final year of the Achaean attack on Troy and though Homer does work into his narrative scenes that recall earlier stages of the war, the rage of Achilles, its cause, its course and its disastrous consequences--is the theme of the poem, the mainspring of the plot.
