Homer: The Resonance of Epic

by Barbara Graziosi, Johannes Haubold

This book offers a new approach to the study of Homeric epic by combining ancient Greek perceptions of Homer with up-to-date scholarship on traditional poetry. Part I argues that, in the archaic period, the Greeks saw the lliad and Odyssey neither as literary works in the modern sense nor as the products of oral poetry. Instead, they regarded them as belonging to a much wider history of the divine cosmos, whose structures and themes are reflected in the resonant patterns of Homer's traditional language and narrative techniques. Part II illustrates this claim by looking at some central aspects of the Homeric the gods and fate, gender and society, death, fame and poetry. Each section shows how the patterns and preoccupations of Homeric storytelling reflect a historical vision that encompasses the making of the universe, from its beginnings when Heaven mated with Earth, to the present day.

192 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2005

About the author

Arts and Humanities director of Durham’s Institute of Advanced Study and Professor of Classics and Ancient History.

Reviews

[Erini Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading for anyone interesting in Homeric epic. Its holistic approach is especially illuminating regarding gender relations, Homeric epithets, and the relationship between Homer and Hesiod. Highly recommend!

[Mariana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Graziosi makes a very well detailed, easy to understand introduction (if I may call it like this) to Homer and his poetry, in a way in which you can have a wide view of both poems compared to Hesiod and inside a social context to understand them in a more deeply way. To be honest I would have liked to read this book at the beginning of my studies, before Nagy and Otto, because now, for me, is too simple. But still, Graziosi have some very interesting ideas about Homer's poetry and how we must understand them as something bigger than just epic poetry, how we can't try to read and study them limited to the use of words or epithets only by musicality for example, and how Homer himself, represents a cosmos. Personally, I would recommend this book to anyone who has already read Homer several times and wants to start studying him in depth.