Homer's the Iliad and the Odyssey: A Biography - Hardcover

Manguel, Alberto

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0871139766 ISBN 13: 9780871139764

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2007

Synopsis

No one knows if there was a man named Homer, but there is no little doubt that the epic poems assembled under his name form the cornerstone of Western literature. The Iliad and The Odyssey, with their incomparable tales of the Trojan War, brace Achilles, Ulysses and Penelope, the Cyclops, the beautiful Helen of Troy, and the petulant gods, are familiar to most readers because they are so pervasive. They have fed our imagination for over two and a half millennia, inspiring everyone from Plato to Virgil, Pope to Joyce, Dante to Wolfgang Petersen. In this graceful and sweeping addition to the Books that Change the World Series, Alberto Manguel traces the lineage of the epic poems. He considers their original purpose, either as allegory or record of history, surveys the challenges the pagan poems presented to the early Christian world, and traces their spread after the Reformation. Following Homer through the greatest literature ever created, Manguel’s book above all delights in the poems themselves, the primordial spring without which there would have been no culture.”

About this title

About the Author:

Alberto Manguel is the bestselling author of several award-winning books, including A Dictionary of Imaginary Places and A History of Reading.

From AudioFile:

Alberto Manguel's meticulous appreciation of Homer starts before the bard's epics were written and continues to the present. He discusses Homer's influence on a range of cultures and writers, down to the level of single metaphorical phrases. This sounds exhausting, but his love for his subject keeps it hypnotic, and Michael Prichard's delivery captures that emotional investment. Prichard evokes Homer's majesty as he reads the verse, and Manguel's admiration for the poet as well. A number of selections in the original Greek are included, as well as numerous translations and passages in other languages. Prichard declaims them all with a strong feel for cadence. He knows how to shift from a line describing intense violence to a scholarly gloss on the line without losing his listeners. G.T.B. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0871139766
• ISBN 13: 9780871139764
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288