1. On Seeing Homer Epic is that kind of poetry—as distinguished from lyric and epic poetry, the poetry of the lyre and of action—which is particularly named after the word, for epos means the word as uttered in speech or song. Hence in reading the Homeric epics we certainly should, in addition to attending to the [...]
Briseis is revealed as Achilles’ Achilles’ heel in Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy (2004), a cleverly postmodern retelling of the plot of Homer’s Iliad. Homer himself enclosed the Calydonian boar hunt in his Iliad, a myth within the myth, as both a nod to what was previously big box office for bards, and a guide to old [...]
The Odyssey of Political Theory: The Politics of Departure and Return, by Patrick J. Deneen Patrick Deneen, an assistant professor of political science at Princeton University, sets out in this book to assess the contemporary relevance of the Homeric legacy, especially the Odyssey. He wishes to avoid both mere pious praise of Homer as the [...]
Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey and the Iliad Featured Book: Reading Homer’s poems is one of the purest, most inexhaustible pleasures life has to offer–a secret somewhat too well kept in our time. The aim of this book is to tell anyone who might care–first-time, second-time, or third-time readers or people who [...]
The Iliad by Homer, translated by Herbert Jordan (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008) It is noteworthy that when the freedman Livius Andronicus (c. 250 B.C.) gave the Romans their first translation of Homer it was the Odyssey, not the Iliad he chose to render in the old Saturnian verse: Virum mihi Camena, insece versutum, [...]