Tradition and Design in the Iliad

by Cecil Maurice Bowra

Published in 1930, this volume is still considered one of the standard works of criticism on the great epic.

293 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1930

About the author

Sir Cecil Maurice Bowra was an English classical scholar and academic, known for his wit. He was Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, from 1938 to 1970, and served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1951 to 1954.

Reviews

[Mac]

This is a fairly old book (1930), and some of it was outdated. But I found C. Maurice Bowra's judgments and arguments to be extremely sound, even though he did not have the benefit of Milman Parry's insights into how Homeric verse was composed. What Bowra did better than any other author I've read on these topics was draw the Iliad into the wider context of epic heroic poetry. He quotes with familiarity from the Song of Roland, Beowulf, Italian Renaissance poets like Tasso, and even oral verse from far-flung regions of the globe.

I look forward to reading more of Bowra's books, including his monograph on heroic poetry.

[Ruby]

This has really interesting ideas although they probably would have been more groundbreaking 100 years ago when it was published. It also took me like three weeks to finish for no good reason but I enjoyed it.