Author: Gregory Nagy
Publisher:
Published: 1999
Total Pages: 432
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Despite widespread interest in the Greek hero as a cult figure, little was written about the relationship between the cult practices and the portrayals of the hero in poetry. The first edition of The Best of the Achaeans bridged that gap, raising new questions about what could be known or conjectured about Greek heroes. In this revised edition, which features a new preface by the author, Gregory Nagy reconsiders his conclusions in the light of the subsequent debate and resumes his discussion of the special status of heroes in ancient Greek life and poetry. His book remains an engaging introduction both to the concept of the hero in Hellenic civilization and to the poetic forms through which the hero is defined: the Iliad and Odyssey in particular and archaic Greek poetry in general.
Author: Anna R. Stelow
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2020-08-06
Total Pages: 384
ISBN-13: 0191509345
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →While there have been many studies devoted to the major heroes and heroines of Homeric epic, among them Achilles, Odysseus, and Helen, the figure of Menelaus has remained notably overlooked in this strand of scholarship. Menelaus in the Archaic Period is the first book-length study of the Homeric character, taking a multidisciplinary approach to his depiction in archaic Greek poetry, art, and cult through detailed analysis of ancient literary, visual, and material evidence. The volume is divided into two parts, the first of which examines the portrayal of Menelaus in the Homeric poems as a unique 'personality' with an integral role to play in each narrative, as depicted through typical patterns of speech and action and through intertextual allusion. The second part explores his representation both in other poetry of the archaic period - including lyric poetry and Simonides' 'Plataea elegy ' - and also archaic art and local Sparta cult, drawing on the literary, archaeological, and inscriptional evidence for the cult of Menelaus with Helen at Therapne. The depiction of Menelaus in archaic art is a particular focal point: Chapter 4 provides a methodology for the interpretation of heroic narrative on archaic Greek vases through iconography and inscriptions and establishes his conventional visual 'identity' on black figure Athenian vases, while an annotated catalogue of images details those that fall outside the 'norm'. Menelaus emerges from this comprehensive study as a unique and likeable character whose relationship with Helen was a popular theme in both epic poetry and vase painting, but one whose portrayal evinced a significant narrative range, with an array of continuities and differences in how he was represented by the Greeks, not only within the archaic period but also in comparison to classical Athens.
Author: Gregory Nagy
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2020-01-10
Total Pages: 657
ISBN-13: 0674244192
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →What does it mean to be a hero? The ancient Greeks who gave us Achilles and Odysseus had a very different understanding of the term than we do today. Based on the legendary Harvard course that Gregory Nagy has taught for well over thirty years, The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours explores the roots of Western civilization and offers a masterclass in classical Greek literature. We meet the epic heroes of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, but Nagy also considers the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the songs of Sappho and Pindar, and the dialogues of Plato. Herodotus once said that to read Homer was to be a civilized person. To discover Nagy’s Homer is to be twice civilized. “Fascinating, often ingenious... A valuable synthesis of research finessed over thirty years.” —Times Literary Supplement “Nagy exuberantly reminds his readers that heroes—mortal strivers against fate, against monsters, and...against death itself—form the heart of Greek literature... [He brings] in every variation on the Greek hero, from the wily Theseus to the brawny Hercules to the ‘monolithic’ Achilles to the valiantly conflicted Oedipus.” —Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly
Author: Alessandro Baricco
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2008-12-10
Total Pages: 178
ISBN-13: 0307486184
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A bold re-imagining of our civilization’s greatest tale of war, from the acclaimed and bestselling author of Silk. In An Iliad, Alessandro Baricco re-creates the siege of Troy through the voices of twenty-one Homeric characters, in the narrative idiom of our modern imagination. From the return of Chryseis to the burial of Hector, we see through human eyes and feel with human hearts the unforgettable events first recounted almost three thousand years ago. Imbuing the stuff of legend with a startling new relevancy and humanity, Baricco gives us The Iliad as we have never known it. His transformative achievement is certain to delight and fascinate all readers of Homer’s indispensable classic.
Author: Gregson Davis
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Published: 2023-12-22
Total Pages: 424
ISBN-13: 0520910303
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Horace's Odes have a surface translucency that belies their rhetorical sophistication. Gregson Davis brings together recent trends in the study of Augustan poetry and critical theory and deftly applies them to individual poems. Exploring four rhetorical strategies—what he calls modes of assimilation, authentication, consolation, and praise and dispraise—Davis produces enlightening, new interpretations of this classic work. Polyhymnia, named after one of the Muses invoked in Horace's opening poem, revises the common image of Horace as a complacent, uncomplicated, and basically superficial singer. Focusing on the artistic persona—the lyric "self" that is constituted in the text—Davis explores how the lyric speaker constructs subtle "arguments" whose building-blocks are topoi, recurrent motifs, and generic conventions. By examining the substructure of lyric argument in groupings of poems sharing similar strategies, the author discloses the major principles that inform Horatian lyric composition.
Author: Homer
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Published: 2022-06-02
Total Pages: 349
ISBN-13: 3375039131
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Reprint of the original, first published in 1865. Translated into English Verse in the Spenserian Stanza.
Author: Jasper Griffin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1980
Total Pages: 238
ISBN-13: 9780198140269
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book demonstrates how Homeric poetry manages to confer significance on persons and actions, interpreting the world and the lives of the people who inhabit it. Taking central themes like characterization, death, and the gods, the author argues that current ideas of the limitations of "oral poetry" are unreal, and that Homer embodies a view of the world both unique and profound.