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Homer's The Iliad and the Odyssey : a biography PDF

225 Pages·2013·1.42 MB·English
by  Homer
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Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey A Biography Alberto Manguel is a world-renowned writer, translator and editor of literary anthologies. His works include A History of Reading, published in 1997 and his novel, Stevenson Under the Palm Trees, in 2005. Other titles in the Books That Shook the World series: AVAILABLE NOW: The Bible by Karen Armstrong Plato’s Republic by Simon Blackburn Darwin’s Origin of Species by Janet Browne Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man by Christopher Hitchens The Qur’an by Bruce Lawrence On the Wealth of Nations by P. J. O’Rourke Carl von Clausewitz’s On War by Hew Strachan Marx’s Das Kapital by Francis Wheen FORTHCOMING: Machiavelli’s The Prince by Philip Bobbitt To Craig, in Ithaca First published in hardback in Great Britain in 2007 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd. This paperback edition published in Great Britain in 2008 by Atlantic Books. Copyright © Alberto Manguel 2007 The moral right of Alberto Manguel to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright-holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity. 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 84354 403 6 eISBN 978 1 78239 139 5 Designed by Richard Marston Typeset by Avon DataSet Ltd, Bidford on Avon, Warwickshire Printed in Great Britain Atlantic Books An imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd Ormond House 26–27 Boswell Street London WC1N 3JZ www.atlantic-books.co.uk CONTENTS Acknowledgements A Note on Translations and Editions Introduction 1 Summaries of the Books 2 A Life of Homer? 3 Among the Philosophers 4 Virgil 5 Christian Homer 6 Other Homers 7 Homer in Islam 8 Dante 9 Homer in Hell 10 Greek versus Latin 11 Ancients versus Moderns 12 Homer as Poetry 13 Realms of Gold 14 Homer as Idea 15 The Eternal Feminine 16 Homer as Symbol 17 Homer as History 18 Madame Homer 19 Ulysses’ Travels 20 Homer Through the Looking-Glass 21 The Never-ending War 22 Everyman Notes Index ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Several readers have helped me in my research: Antonio Basanta Reyes, Carmen Criado, Silvia Di Segni Obiols, Lucie Pabel, Gottwalt Pankow, Arturo Ramoneda, Marta Royo, Jean-Christophe Saladin, Guillermo Schavelzon, Takis Théodoropoulos, Mario Claudio Vicario: to them my deepest thanks. Special thanks to Louisa Joyner for her care, patience and enthusiasm, and to Meg Davies for her precise and intelligent indexing. Also, to Toby Mundy of Grove Atlantic for suggesting the book in the first place, and to Bruce Westwood and the staff of WCA, who were the first enthusiastic emissaries. A NOTE ON TRANSLATIONS AND EDITIONS To simplify the reading, I’ve preferred to use common versions of the Homeric names, ‘Ulysses’ rather than ‘Odysseus’ and ‘Achilles’ rather than ‘Akhilleus’. As Samuel Butler noted, ‘Neither do I think that Hekabe will supersede Hecuba, till “What’s Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba?” is out of date.’1 (Though in our forgetful times, Butler may have to wait less time than he thought…) I am aware that I use the term ‘Greek’ incorrectly. The allied forces against Troy were composed of Achaeans, Danaans and Argives, not of homogenous ‘Greeks’, a name that was not invented until the expansion of the Roman Empire. However, in the context of this book, I use ‘Greek’ as a kind of shorthand. Neither does the word ‘Hellenic’ (which I have used once or twice) properly cover the historical and geographical ground of Homer’s stories, only a limited territory in southern Thessaly. The numbering of Homer’s lines differs in the various translations. Throughout the book, I have used the versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey translated by Robert Fagles and published in 1992 and 2004 respectively by Penguin Classics, which, to my taste, are among the best and most graceful. Other translations of foreign works quoted, unless otherwise stated, are my own. Concerning the task of a literary critic, A. E. Housman had this to say: ‘Knowledge is good, method is good, but one thing beyond all others is necessary; and that is to have a head, not a pumpkin, on your shoulders, and brains, not pudding, in your head.’ I have long had occasion to doubt whether I fulfil either requirement.

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