Homer: A Guide for the PerplexedShortlisted for the Runciman Award 2013 Homer's poetry is widely recognized as the beginning of the literary tradition of the West and among its most influential canonical texts. Outlining a series of key themes, ideas, and values associated with Homer and Homeric poetry, Homer: A Guide for the Perplexed explores the question of the formation of the Iliad and the Odyssey - the so-called 'Homeric Problem'. Among the main Homeric themes which the book considers are origin and form, orality and composition, heroic values, social structure, and social bias, gender roles and gendered interpretation, ethnicity, representations of religion, mortality, and the divine, memory, poetry, and poetics, and canonicity and tradition, and the history of Homeric receptions. Drawing upon his extensive knowledge of scholarship on Homer and early epic, Ahuvia Kahane explores contemporary critical and philosophical questions relating to Homer and the Homeric tradition, and examines his wider cultural impact, contexts and significance. This is the ideal companion to study of this most influential poet, providing readers with some basic suggestions for further pursuing their interests in Homer. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 18 | |
3 The poet and the making of the poem | 40 |
4 Homers poetic language | 60 |
5 Proems tales and plots | 79 |
6 The Iliad | 99 |
7 The Odyssey | 121 |
Men and women | 150 |
9 Mortality and the divine | 168 |
Envoi | 184 |
Suggestions for further reading | 187 |
| 193 | |
| 203 | |
| 208 | |
| 210 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Achilles action Aegisthus Agamemnon ancient Andromache antiquity Aphrodite Apollo argued Aristotle Athena audiences and readers battle beginning Book Briseis Bronze Age Calypso century bce characterize Chryses Clytemnestra contexts Cyclops death Demodocus described Diomedes divine elements epic Epic Cycle example fame fate father fighting formulaic gender goddess gods Greek camp Hector Helen Hephaestus hero’s heroes heroic hexameter Hisarlik historical homecoming Homeric poems Homeric poetry husband idea identity Iliad and Odyssey important island Ithaca killed Laertes literary Menelaus modern mortal Muses narrative narrator Nausicaa Nestor Odysseus Odyssey’s ofthe Iliad ofthe poem oral Parry Parry’s past Patroclus Penelope Penelope’s performance Phaeacians Phemius Pisistratus plot poem’s poet poetic precisely preserve Priam prize proem relation repetition resonance says scene Schliemann scholars simile singer social song speak story structure suggests suitors tale Telemachus tell themes Thetis Trojan Trojan War Troy verse wife women words wrath Zeus