Homer and the Odyssey / Suzanne Saïd ; [translated by Ruth Webb].

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Saïd, Suzanne.

Contributor:

Webb, Ruth, 1963-

Standardized Title:

Homèr et l'Odyssée. English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Homer. Odyssey.

Homer.

Homer--Criticism and interpretation.

Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

420 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2011.

Summary:

Who was Homer? This book takes us beyond the legends of the blind bard or the wandering poet to explore an author about whom nothing is known, except for his works. It offers a reading of the ancient biographies as clues to the reception of the Homeric poems in Antiquity and provides an introduction to the oral tradition which lay at the source of the Homeric epics. Above all, it takes us into the world of the Odyssey, a world that lies between -history and fiction. It guides the reader through a poem which rivals the modern novel in its complexity, demonstrating the unity of the poem as a whole. It defines the many and varied figures of otherness by which the Greeks of the archaic period defined themselves and underlines the values promoted by the poem's depictions of men, women, and gods. Finally, it asks why, throughout the centuries from Homer to Kazantzakis and Joyce, the hero who never forgets his homeland and dreams constantly of return has never ceased to be the incarnation of what it is to be human.

This translation is a revised and much expanded version of the original French text, and includes a new Chapter on the representation of women in the Odyssey and an updated bibliography. French text, and includes a new Chapter on the representation of women in the Odyssey and an updated bibliography. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 From 'Homer' to the Homeric Poems 7

2 The Art of Homer: Between Tradition and Innovation 46

3 Homer and History 75

4 The Odyssey: Narrations, Narrators, and Poets 95

5 The Adventures of Telemachus 132

6 Odysseus' Travels 150

7 Odysseus on Ithaca 189

8 The Human World 223

9 Women in the Odyssey 258

10 The World of the Gods 315

11 The Ideology of the Odyssey 355.

Notes:

Originally pubished as Homèr et l'Odyssée in 1998 by Éditions Belin.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [381]-399) and index.

ISBN:

0199542856

9780199542857

9780199542840

0199542848

OCLC:

704381173