>>BTW, I never read Iliad. But I did read Odyssey - the cunning guy who's been around the world was more to my liking than the warriors and the bloodshed. Also, there was the terrific Italian series then, with Yugoslav actor Bekim Fehmiu (great guy, died this year) as Ulysses. And then, of course, I just had to read Joyce, without ever catching onto the formal parallel between the episodes, only the "Bloom is Ulysses of our times and he gets those 20 years in a single day".
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>The version I read in college was in verse. This was back in 1980...

The one I have in mind was on the bookshelves around 2000-2003, in university bookstores. I was just buzzing around while daughters were buying stuff for college. And then I found it in the library too. I'm not proposing the translator (or the publisher) should be summarily shot - maybe there's some other method of shooting available - it's just that I think that losing the verse denies the reader a significant part of the beauty of it.