The Odyssey (Signet Classics)

Homer

ISBN 10: 0451530683 / ISBN 13: 9780451530684

Published by Signet (edition Reissue), 2007

About this Item

The item might be beaten up but readable. May contain markings or highlighting, as well as stains, bent corners, or any other major defect, but the text is not obscured in any way.

Seller Inventory # 0451530683-7-1

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Odyssey (Signet Classics)
• Publisher: Signet (edition Reissue)
• Publication Date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0451530683
• ISBN 13: 9780451530684
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Edition: Reissue.
• Condition: Fair

About this title

Synopsis

THE GREATEST ADVENTURE OF ALL TIME

Richly imagined by the blind bard around 900 B.C.E., Homer's story follows Odysseus on a decade-long journey as he flees Cyclops, angers his gods, resists the Sirens, averts his eyes from Medusa, docks in exotic cities-ever longing to return to his wife and son.

About the Author

Homer was probably born around 725BC on the Coast of Asia Minor, now the coast of Turkey, but then really a part of Greece. Homer was the first Greek writer whose work survives.

He was one of a long line of bards, or poets, who worked in the oral tradition. Homer and other bards of the time could recite, or chant, long epic poems. Both works attributed to Homer – the Iliad and the Odyssey – are over ten thousand lines long in the original. Homer must have had an amazing memory but was helped by the formulaic poetry style of the time.

In the Iliad Homer sang of death and glory, of a few days in the struggle between the Greeks and the Trojans. Mortal men played out their fate under the gaze of the gods. The Odyssey is the original collection of tall traveller’s tales. Odysseus, on his way home from the Trojan War, encounters all kinds of marvels from one-eyed giants to witches and beautiful temptresses. His adventures are many and memorable before he gets back to Ithaca and his faithful wife Penelope.

We can never be certain that both these stories belonged to Homer. In fact ‘Homer’ may not be a real name but a kind of nickname meaning perhaps ‘the hostage’ or ‘the blind one’. Whatever the truth of their origin, the two stories, developed around three thousand years ago, may well still be read in three thousand years’ time.

W.H.D. Rouse was one of the great 20th century experts on Ancient Greece, and headmaster of the Perse School, Cambridge, England, for 26 years. Under his leadership the school became widely known for the successful teaching of Greek and Latin as spoken languages. He derived his knowledge of the Greeks not only from his wide studies of classical literature, but also by travelling extensively in Greece. He died in 1950.