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STANLEY LOMBARDO
is professor of classics at the University of Kansas. His translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey were originally published by Hackett Publishing Company in 1997 and 2000, respectively.
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"This gave me the opportunity to participate in a project featuring two great and important works, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and to further support the revival of Greek History and the Classics."
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—Susan Sarandon
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"When Stanley Lombardo performs Homer, we feel what Bob Dylan calls the ‘inner substance’ of great folk songs, their ‘pulse and vibration and rumbling force’.
We grasp the power words had before books, movies and iPods.™ Homer taught the ancient Greeks about life, death, love and war. Now in Lombardo’s words and voice, Homer teaches us, too."
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— Tom Palaima
University of Texas at Austin
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"The quality of Stan’s voice, which has an honest, unshowy American core, makes these performances sound fresh, intimate, and believable— very different from those theatricized oral interpretations that overplay the 'epic' note."
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— Richard P. Martin
Stanford University
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"Remarkably true to the centrality of performance in Homer, the varied pacing and tone, the clarity, speed, narrative drive, and moments of breathtaking beauty."
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—Rachel Hadas
Rutgers University
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"Just the right degree of involvement or detachment as each circumstance in the reading calls for."
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— William Levitan
Grand Valley State University
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"The most daring, rapid and colloquial translation of Homer's Iliad that I know. Lombardo's taut and punchy verse conveys admirably and accurately the excitement and desperation of the battle, the urgency of the commanders, the occasional flashes of humor, the passion of Homer's narrative and the vivid and subtle humanity of his characters."
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— Richard Janko
University College, London
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"Your publishing house does a superb job and a true service to classical philosophy. I wish you every future success. In line with the books which are of the highest quality in both content and form, the CDs are also impressive in that they manage to resurrect the orality of Homeric poetry in an age when technology and the written sign dominate almost any corner of culture. I have always thought that poetry is for recitation and oral performance but have not anticipated the impact that a modern American translation of Homer would have on me. CONGRATULATIONS!"
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—Spyros Rangos
University of Patras, Greece
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"Gripping... Lombardo manages to be respectful of Homer’s dire spirit while providing... some wonderfully fresh refashioning of his Greek. The result is a vivid and disarmingly hardbitten reworking of a great classic."
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—Daniel Mendelsohn
New York Times Book Review
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"Lombardo weaves his cherished idioms into important patterns of repetition and transformation so familiar to the telling of the Odyssey... serving to remind us of the oral character of the original Odyssey and providing the reader with an uncanny immediacy and relevance."
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—Christina Zwarg
Bryn Mawr Classical Review
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"Lombardo has brought his laconic wit and love of the ribald... to his version of the Odyssey. His carefully honed syntax gives the narrative energy and a whirlwind pace. The lines, rhythmic and clipped, have the tautness and force of Odysseus' bow."
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—Chris Hedges
New York Times Book Review
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"Having felt a newfound appetite for the Trojan War, I turned promptly to the recently recorded Iliad as translated by Stanley Lombardo (Parmenides Audio, 15 hours, 12 CDs, $42, www.parmenidesaudio.com). Susan Sarandon reads an introduction by Tom Palaima as well as synopses of each book, all of which are included in a useful little booklet. Lombardo, a veteran of many performances of his translation, delivers the poem himself in a well-modulated, walnutty voice that occasionally roars out dramatically to handle the more exuberant, even bumptious, passages. 'I can't wait,' Telamonian Ajax cries, 'to wrap my hands/ Around a spear. I'm all pumped up and my feet/ Are flying beneath me. Bring on Hector.'
Yes, these Greeks are real guys. Still, Lombardo's translation and delivery are not without pomp, but there again that pomp is not without a certain op-ed quality: 'RAGE,' Book One begins, 'Sing, Goddess, Achilles' rage,/ Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks/ incalculable pain.' Incalculable pain? I found myself laughing at the outrageous pedestrianism of certain parts. ('Hector, you always lay into me in assembly.') On the other hand, the poem is the furthest thing from boring, and the drum and violin music that punctuates the episodes, composed by Vincent Castaldo, is splendid, evoking that which is ancient, menacing and tragic."
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—Katherine A. Powers
Washington Post
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"Do they still teach the classics of literature in school or even college any more? Well, you can be greatly entertained by The Essential Homer ($48.00) and The Essential Iliad ($20), two abridged audio sets containing the key chapters and passages from these time-honored works. Parmenides Publishing of Las Vegas has produced them. I have recommended their earlier audio books and been joined by the Washington Post and The Bloombury Review who likewise thought them a wonderful listening experience, translated for the modern listener to these great tales of vengeful gods and ancient warriors. These two audiobooks have recently received Publisher's Weekly's 'Listen-Up Award' in the category of classics. To learn more about them, visit www.ParmenidesAudio.com."
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Endorsed by PASP
(Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory) Click here
Library Journal
—June 15th Issue
Match The Iliad by Homer, read by Stanley Lombardo (12 CDs. retail ed. Parmenides Audio. 2006. ISBN 978-1-930972-08-7. $42), to a long straight drive with nothing much to see so that you can safely sink into the meter. Homer’s dark meditation features the rage and regret of Achilles during the Trojan War, at the siege of Ilium. The epic was meant to be recited aloud, and Lombardo’s spellbinding narration acts as a time capsule, hurling listeners back to the heroic age and placing them in the presence of a master storyteller. His voice slips into chant, rises and crests with the terrible violence of battle, and shifts into pure incantation as Homer transitions into the emotional caverns of the story.
—Neal Wyatt
Bloomsbury Review
"Great poetry is best heard, not just read, and these two CD sets of Homer’s epic works are exemplars of the spoken word. Stanley Lombardo, professor of classics at the University of Kansas, is among the leading scholars of Homer, and here reads his own translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey in their entirety. Each recorded set includes a booklet with a map of Homer’s storied world; synopses of each book in the work, which are read by actress Susan Sarandon; and a glossary of personal and place names. Lombardo’s voice is wonderfully resonant and expressive—he is also a performer—and together with the original music, beautifully evokes the world of the Trojan War and Odysseus’ journey home. These productions from Parmenides Publishing, which specializes in Western philosophy, are a class act."
—Lori D. Kranz
Booklist Review (Nov 07)
"Listeners expecting boring poetry will be astonished by translator and reader Lombardo’s reading of the classic poem in modern language and colloquial jargon. Susan Sarandon introduces each book of the poem. In a breathtaking performance, Lombardo retains the majesty and well-loved images of this ancient story of the Greeks battling the Trojans."
—Joyce Saricks, "Listen-alikes: Revisiting the Classics."
Booklist Review (Jun 07)
Whether new to the Iliad or familiar with its riches, listeners are in for an unexpected treat with this splendid abridged audio of Lombardo's 1998 translation...
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National Post
Several weeks ago, someone (a Fodder fan?) anonymously sent me an audio version of The Iliad from Parmenides Audio. The narrator and translator is Stanley Lombardo, a University of Kansas classics prof who by fortuitous coincidence possesses a basso profundo voice made for epic poetry.
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Publishers Weekly
Lombardo has rendered the story of the final stretch of the Trojan War and its plethora of jealous, vengeful gods and warriors feasting, battling and endlessly speechifying, more boldly modern and recognizable than the remote marble tableaux conjured by most other versions.
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AudioFile Magazine
Current Reviews
This audio presentation does a good job of making Homer's text accessible to contemporary listeners and giving a sense of what hearing this epic poem might have been like for ancient Greeks.
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AudioFile Magazine RealTime Reviews
Stanley Lombardo provides a welcome translation, contemporary in its rhythms, assurance, and clarity.
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Midwest Book Review
Rating: 5 stars - "Iliad is a flawlessly recorded, complete and unabridged audio presentation of the timeless and classical Greek tale of the Trojan War"
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Midwest Book Review
Essentials
Each enthusiastically recommended volume is translated and narrative by Stanley Lombardo (Professor of Classics at the University of Kansas), and features an introduction written by Tom Palaima
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The Villager
An ancient Greek audience listened all night to Homer. In the morning, minds full of Calypso’s sinuous hips, Circe’s beguiling sigh-songs of globular delight, the clang of terrible weapons, and, most of all, a world-classical hangover, your typical Homeric audience straggled home through the dew-fresh grass of the Aegean hills, transformed into believers in epic poetry. Before sleep, they rested their bloodshot eyes upon the wine-purple sea and beseeched Athena to kill them on the spot.
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Jacket Magazine 31
Michael Leddy reviews Stanley Lombardo's audiobooks, Iliad & Odyssey. .
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Jacket Magazine 21
Michael Leddy interviews Stanley Lombardo.
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SeniorNet Books interviews Stanley Lombardo about his translation of The Iliad
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Science Daily
Rating: 5 stars - An engaging, entertaining, and memorable reading of the classic work...
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