Wounding and Death in the 'Iliad': Homeric Techniques of Description

by Wolf-Harmut Friedrich

W.-H. Friedrich's Verwundung und Tod in Der Ilias was originally published in 1956. Never before translated into English, its importance has slowly come to be first, because it discusses in detail the plausibility (or otherwise) of the wounds received on the Homeric battlefield and is therefore of considerable interest to historians of medicine; and second, because it makes a serious and sustained effort to grapple with the question of style, and thus confronts an issue which oral theory has scarcely touched. Peter Jones adds a Preface briefly locating the work within the terms of oral theory; Kenneth Saunders (Emeritus Professor of Medicine at St George's Hospital Medical School, London) updates Friedrich's medical analyses in a full Appendix.

186 pages, Hardcover

First published September 17, 2003