The Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer

The Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer

Homer's two epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey, stand with supreme masterworks of world literature, yet the stories they tell are among the first that many of us ever hear. When I was a smallboy, my steel-worker father would perch me on his lap and make my eyes grow wide with tales of a ten-years-long war fought over the most beautiful woman in the world and won by a sneaky trick, then go on to describe a one-eyed Cyclops, the Sirens and their irresistible singing, a huge whirlpool and a six-headed monster, the witch Circe who turned sailors into swine, magical winds and a despised beggar who cast off his rags to take bloody revenge with a bow no one but he could string. At that time these episodes from the Trojan War and Odysseus's long voyage home struck me as the best stories in the world. Many years and many stories later, I haven't changed my mind.

Abstract from the introduction, written by Michael Dirda

Details

• Hardcover
• ISBN: 9781435145382
• Condition: As new
• Publishing House: Barnes and Noble