Nicholas Rais

As a Greek raised in a family with Homer's works being as well known as the Bible (if not moreso), and as a scholar I found this work to be remarkably insightful, diligent, and spot on, with a few caveats which James P. Holoka, editor and translator of the excellent Critical Edition put out by Peter Lang in 2006, takes the time to address in his Commentary. Certainly worth a read for anyone who is interested in gaining new insight to the oldest surviving work of Western literature and the mind of Homer. In recent decades, more sholars share Weil's views, but at the time this work was widely criticized as amateurish and missing the whole point of the Iliad. In fact, it has always been my opinion since reading it yearly since I was a small boy until college work made it inpracticable, that the correct interpretation is in fact the one that I was unaware of until last month was being expressed by Weil. As far as I can recall (being now in my 40s) that was the same opinion held by my entire family, whose connection to the text I had already mentioned. Generations of Greeks CAN be argued with, but I think that perhaps its not such an absurd possibility when that many people have the same idea. (Take THAT, early-twentieth-century Helenists!)