The formative influence of the Homeric epics in shaping Greek culture was widely recognized, and Homer was described as the teacher of Greece. Most modern researchers place Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BCE. Herodotus estimates that Homer lived 400 years before his own time, which would place him at around 850 BCE, while other ancient sources claim that he lived much nearer to the supposed time of the Trojan War, in the early 12th century BCE. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature. In the Western classical tradition, Homer (Greek: Ὅμηρος) is considered the author of The Iliad and The Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest of ancient Greek epic poets. Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, presents us with Homer's best-loved and most accessible poem in a stunning new modern-verse translation. This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the public at large, and to captivate a new generation of Homer's students. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox's superb Introduction and textual commentary provide new insights and background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Fagles' translation. In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces, during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance. If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, then the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey though life. So begins Robert Fagles' magnificent translation of the Odyssey. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turnsĭriven time and again off course, once he had plundered This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. Our reviewer, Alan Cheuse, teaches writing at George Mason University.Ĭopyright © 2010 NPR. NORRIS: The novels are "Ransom" by David Malouf and "The Lost Books of the Odyssey" by Zachery Mason. It's an absolute tribute and an absolute delight. This encounter, as is all of this inventive novel, is Homer filtered through Borges and many other modernists. In one of these chapters, he finds himself alone on an island in the middle of winter, in a cabin where sits a book, which happens to be the story of Odysseus, as Mason tells it, soldier and diplomat, a man of versatile intelligence who connived to destroy a sacred city in the east and made the long trip home over many trying years. Out our hero goes from Mediterranean island to island, and again and again, he arrives home in Ithaca, sometimes finding chaos, sometimes finding all is lost. In his own intense and slightly formal fashion, David Malouf delivers his own cartload of treasure from this ancient material, and in exchange, we get a deep and stately rendering of a magnificent poetic sequence.įirst-time novelist Zachery Mason employs a lighter touch in "The Lost Books of The Odyssey" with its multiple variations on the adventures of Odysseus and his fabled homecoming. Priam and his mule driver haul a cartload of Troy's gold, treasures he wants to exchange for the corpse of Hector. Priam, king of Troy, crosses the battle line in disguise to plead with Achilles for the body of his slain son Hector. ![]() In "Ransom," the Australian novelist David Malouf focuses on one of the great sequences in Homer and a lot of people would say in all Western literature one of the so-called embassy episodes of "The Iliad." ![]() You can add to that list two new books now.ĪLAN CHEUSE: These two new works of fiction should be catnip to anyone who loves great literature and all of its spin-offs and variations and byplays and descendants. Homer's epic poems, "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey," have already been repurposed countless times. Why mess with the classics? There's no shortage of books, good and bad, that were inspired by great books. This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |