Homer and His Iliad
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- USD 14.99
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- USD 14.99
Descripción editorial
A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year
A thrilling study of the greatest of all epic poems, by one of the world's leading classicists
Homer's Iliad is the famous epic poem set among the tales of Troy. Its subject is the anger of the hero Achilles and its dreadful consequences for the warring Greeks and Trojans. It was composed more than 2,600 years ago, but still transfixes us with its tale of loss and battle, love and revenge, guided throughout by the active presence of the gods. Its beauty and profound bleakness are intensely moving but great questions remain: where, how and when it was composed and why it has such enduring power?
In this compelling book Robin Lane Fox addresses these questions, drawing on a life-long love and engagement with the poem. He argues for a place, a date and a method for its composition, giving us a sense of alternative approaches and grounding his own in discoveries about long heroic poems composed elsewhere in the world, and the ever-growing evidence of archaeology.
Unlike other books on the Iliad, this one combines the detailed expertise of a historian with the sensitivity of a teacher of it as poetry. Lane Fox goes on to consider hallmarks of the poem, its values, implicit and explicit, its characters, its women, its gods and even its horses. He argues repeatedly for its beautiful observation and addresses its parallel use of what is, to us, the natural world. Thousands of readers turn to the Iliad every year. In this superbly written and conceived tribute, Lane Fox expresses and amplifies what old and new readers can find in it. It is pervaded, he argues, by a poignant hardness which is not just a poetic trick. It is a deeply held view of the world.
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Oxford historian Lane Fox (Augustine) examines in this enlightening account the origins and the lasting impact of Homer's Iliad. Drawing on historical and archaeological evidence, he pinpoints the method and location of the poem's creation, suggesting that it was an oral narrative, with portions sung, that was dictated not long after its composition, which occurred along the Aegean Coast of Asia sometime between 750 and 740 BCE. (He zeroes in on such a precise time frame because it is bounded on the late end by the earliest appearance of lines from the poem on pottery shards, and on the early end by political and social developments which Homer seems to reference.) According to Lane Fox, the Iliad has endured because of the universal appeal of its themes, including the male heroes' fascination with kudos or fame, the divine intervention and intermittent absences of the gods, and the contrast between the glory of war and the futility of conflict. The shifting behavior of the hero, Achilles—from anger to rage to revenge and finally to pity and compassion—receives special attention. Combining a historian's meticulous methodology with a lifelong appreciation of the Iliad, Lane Fox presents a thorough reassessment of the poem and a moving interrogation of its themes of pathos, pity, and irony. It's a rewarding investigation.