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Iliad
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Prior to joining Iliad, Thomas Reynaud was a Managing Director in Equity Capital Markets at Société Générale, responsible for the Telecoms, Media and Technology sector. He started his career at Société Générale, worked in both the Paris and New York offices, leading numerous transactions in connection with IPOs, privatisations and equity and debt offerings. In the last five years, Thomas Reynaud had worked closely with Iliad as an advisor, notably managing the Group’s IPO in 2004 and convertible bond issue in 2006. He joined the Group during the summer of 2007 as head of business development and member of the management committee before becoming chief financial officer of Iliad in January 2008. Thomas Reynaud is a graduate of HEC and New York University.
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Fate in the Iliad is not a force which predetermines all human actions. Fate primarily refers to ends, like the end of a man's life or of a city such as Troy. These ends are governed by fate and cannot be avoided. The relationship of the gods to fate is an issue in the conversation between Zeus and Hera. What action does Zeus consider in 435-438? What warning does Hera give to Zeus (440-449)?
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The Iliad has a very strong religious and supernatural element. Both sides in the war are extremely pious, and both have heroes descended from divine beings. They constantly sacrifice to the gods and consult priests and prophets to decide their actions. For their own part, the gods frequently join in battles, both by advising and protecting their favorites and even by participating in combat against humans and other gods.
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The Iliad narrates the consequences of the anger or rage of Achilles. The Greek word menin ("wrath" or "rage") is the first word in the epic. Because of his anger, Achilles withdraws from the war and causes his comrades the Achaeans to suffer "countless losses" (1.2) or deaths. Death is central to the poem. Seth Schein writes: The overwhelming fact of life for the heroes of the Iliad is their mortality, which stands in contrast to the immortality of the gods. We see the central hero of the poem, Achilles, move toward disillusionment and death to reach a new clarity about human existence in the wider context of the eventual destruction of Troy and in an environment consisting almost entirely of war and death.
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The Iliad begins on the tenth and final year of the Trojan War. After offending Achilles who then refuses to fight, Agamemnon's forces begin to take heavy casualties under the onslaught of Prince Hector, the Commander and Chief of the Trojan army. Back and forth the fortunes of war go as warriors fall victim to the spear and sword. The graphic descriptions of slaughter, mutilation and death are extremely gruesome and Homer describes without compromise the dark side of human nature - fired by the horrors of war. The combatants are mere pawns in the hands of the scheming Olympian gods who fight for their favoured side and rival each other for Zeus' will.
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The Iliad has been translated into English for centuries. George Chapman's 16th century translation was praised by John Keats in his sonnet, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. Alexander Pope's translation into rhymed pentameter was published in 1715. William Cowper's 1791 version in forceful Miltonic blank verse is highly regarded. In his lectures On Translating Homer Matthew Arnold commented on the problems of translating the Iliad and on the major translations available in 1861. In 1870 the American poet William Cullen Bryant published a "simple, faithful" (Van Wyck Brooks) version in blank verse.
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