About the Author: Homer
In the Western classical tradition, Homer (Greek: ΌμηÏος) is considered the author of The Iliad and The Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest of ancient Greek epic poets. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.
When he lived is unknown. Herodotus estimates that Homer lived 400 years before his own time, which would place him at around 850 BCE, while other ancient sources claim that he lived much nearer to the supposed time of the Trojan War, in the early 12th century BCE. Most modern researchers place Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BCE.
The formative influence of the Homeric epics in shaping Greek culture was widely recognized, and Homer was described as the teacher of Greece. Homer's works, which are about fifty percent speeches, provided models in persuasive speaking and writing that were emulated throughout the ancient and medieval Greek worlds. Fragments of Homer account for nearly half of all identifiable Greek literary papyrus finds.
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Homer
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Paperback, by HarperCollins
ISBN10: 000790214X | ISBN13: 9780007902149
Page count: 648
War, glory, despair, and mourning: for 2,700 years, the Iliad has gripped listeners and readers with the story of Achilles' anger and Hector's death. It is a tale of many truths, powerful emotions, the failures of leadership, the destructive power of beauty, the quest for fame, the plight of women, and the cold, callous laughter of the gods. Above all, it confronts us with war in all its brutality--and with fleeting images of peace, lovingly drawn, images which punctuate the poem as distant memories, startling comparisons, and doomed aspirations. That listeners and readers have returned to the Iliad, generation after generation, is a testament to its extraordinary power as the greatest of all epic poems.
Anthony Verity's elegant and compelling new translation mirrors the directness, power, and dignity of Homer's poetry. Verity captures the essential features of oral poetry, such as repeated phrases and scenes, without sounding mannered or archaic, and his remarkably accurate verse hews closely to the original line numbers, invaluable for readers wishing to consult the secondary literature.
Barbara Graziosi, an authority on Homeric poetry, offers a full introduction that illuminates the composition of the poem, its literary qualities, and the many different contexts in which it was performed and read. In addition, extensive notes offer book-by-book summaries and shed light on difficult words and passages, mythological allusions, references to ancient practices, and geographical names. An annotated bibliography offers a succinct guide to further scholarship in English; a full index of names enables the reader to trace particular characters through the text; and two maps elucidate the Catalogue of Ships and the Catalogue of the Trojans.
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