Homer, Samuel Butler

The Odyssey

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

The Odyssey, Homer's epic tale of Odysseus and his ten-year journey home after the Trojan war, is one of the earliest and greatest works of literature. It is a wonderful story that has entranced generations over the last two and a half millennia. The characters and events are well known, and the form - a long journey of discovery and testing - has become a standard device in storytelling. Odysseus is known as "polytropos," a man of many twists and turns and tricks, a man who lives by his wits. As the Greeks leave for Troy, it is Odysseus' cleverness that allows him to find the hero Achilles who is crucial to their victory. Then, after ten years camped outside Troy and the loss of countless lives on both sides, he brings the Trojan war to a dramatic conclusion with the now famous Trojan horse. One expects Odysseus' story to end with his returning home as a hero. Instead, Homer and the fates send him on another ten years of travels. This is the story of the Odyssey. But it is much more than an exciting story; it is also about faithful marital love, and the love of home and country. Aristotle says that while The Iliad is about events, The Odyssey is about character. The word "odyssey" has entered the English language, and many regard The Odyssey as the world's most enduring narrative. Plato called Homer "the teacher of all Greece" and "the leader of Greek culture." Indeed, in the classical age, the Greeks regarded the Iliad and Odyssey as more than works of literature; they knew much of them by heart, and they valued them not only as symbols of Hellenic unity and heroism but also as sources of moral and even practical instruction. Homer's works have been studied, quoted and translated in every corner of Europe and his influence on the Western imagination is immense. This unabridged prose edition was translated by Samuel Butler, the iconoclastic English author of the Utopian satirical novel Erewhon and the semi-autobiographical novel The Way of All Flesh. The latter was published posthumously as he was afraid to publish it in his lifetime.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Benediction Books
• Seitenzahl: 206
• Erscheinungstermin: 23. Dezember 2017
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 234mm x 156mm x 12mm
• Gewicht: 359g
• ISBN-13: 9781781399187
• ISBN-10: 1781399182
• Artikelnr.: 50492157

Autorenporträt

Homer (750 bc - unknown) Popularly known as Homer, Melesigenes authored two of the oldest extant epics of Greek mythology: the Iliad and Odyssey. Said to have been blind, he narrated both his books as poetry, and they were first written down in the format of a script in the 8th century bce. Melesigenes's travels across the country of Greece as a poet brought him to the Hermaean plain in the county of Cumae where he adopted the name, Homer - a name that was given by the people of the county to blind men. His promises of bringing the county reclaim if they supported him were met with resistance, and this drove the poet to Phocoea, and then to Erythrae. Thereafter, he arrived in the town of Chios, where he married and started a family. Originally written in Homeric Greek, both the Iliad and Odyssey have been translated into multiple languages across the world. His descriptions of love, loss, friendship, anger, angst, war, brotherhood, and kinghood transcend time and age, and continue to pull a reader towards his works. This edition of the Illiad was translated by Alexander Pope (1688-1744), a poet whose satirical poetry won him widespread acclaim. His translations of the Iliad and Odyssey are considered some of his best works till date.