'Translation' and Transformation: Alice Oswald's Excavation of the Iliad

Abstract

Alice Oswald's, Memorial, an 'excavation' of the Iliad, is a response to that ancient account of the grief and pain that is inevitably the outcome of war. Oswald herself describes the poem as an 'oral cemetery'. Borrowing some of the most conspicuous of Homer's traditional epic elements - his lists, biographies, and smiles - and blending paraphrase and translation, Oswald has re-worked this early epic, creating a poem for today's world. This paper offers a close reading of Memorial, its themes and its composition, through the lens of Homer.