The Odyssey

Author:   Homer ,  Bernard Knox ,  Bernard Knox ,  Robert Fagles
Publisher:   Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN:  

9780140268867


Pages:   560
Publication Date:   27 November 1997
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   In stock   Availability explained
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The Odyssey


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Overview

"The great epic of Western literature, translated by the acclaimed classicist Robert Fagles A Penguin Classic 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 modern-verse translation. ""Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy."" So begins Robert Fagles' magnificent translation of the Odyssey, which Jasper Griffin in the New York Times Book Reviewhails as ""a distinguished achievement."" If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of an everyman's journey through life. 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. In the myths and legends 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. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox's superb introduction and textual commentary provide insightful background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Fagles's translation.This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the general reader, to captivate a new generation of Homer's students. This Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition features French flaps and deckle-edged paper. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators."

Full Product Details

Author:   Homer ,  Bernard Knox ,  Bernard Knox ,  Robert Fagles
Publisher:   Penguin Books Ltd
Imprint:   Penguin Classics
Dimensions:   Width: 14.50cm , Height: 3.60cm , Length: 21.30cm
Weight:   0.610kg
ISBN:  

9780140268867


ISBN 10:   0140268863
Pages:   560
Publication Date:   27 November 1997
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In stock   Availability explained
We have confirmation that this item is in stock with the supplier. It will be ordered in for you and dispatched immediately.
Language:   English

Table of Contents

The OdysseyIntroduction Introduction The Spelling and Pronunciation of Homeris Names Maps: 1. Homeric Geography: Mainland Greece 2. Homeric Geography: The Peloponnese 3. Homeric Geography: The Aegean and Asia Minor Homer: The Odyssey Book 1: Athena Inspires the Prince Book 2: Telemachus Sets Sail Book 3: King Nestor Remembers Book 4: The King and Queen of Sparta Book 5: Odysseus-Nymph and Shipwreck Book 6: The Princess and the Stranger Book 7: Phaeacia's Halls and Gardens Book 8: A Day for Songs and Contests Book 9: In the One-Eyed Giant's Cave Book 10: The Bewitched Queen of Aeaea Book 11: The Kingdom of the Dead Book 12: The Cattle of the Sun Book 13: Ithaca at Last Book 14: The Loyal Swineherd Book 15: The Prince Sets Sail for Home Book 16: Father and Son Book 17: Stranger at the Gates Book 18: The Beggar-King of Ithaca Book 19: Penelope and her Guest Book 20: Portents Gather Book 21: Odysseus Stings his Bow Book 22: Slaughter in the Hall Book 23: The Great Rooted Bed Book 24: Peace Notes Translator's Postscript Genealogies Textual Variants from the Oxford Classical Text Notes on the Translation Suggestions for Further Reading Pronouncing Glossary

Reviews

[Robert Fitzgerald's translation is] a masterpiece . . . An Odyssey worthy of the original. - The Nation [Fitzgerald's Odyssey and Iliad ] open up once more the unique greatness of Homer's art at the level above the formula; yet at the same time they do not neglect the brilliant texture of Homeric verse at the level of the line and the phrase. - The Yale Review [In] Robert Fitzgerald's translation . . . there is no anxious straining after mighty effects, but rather a constant readiness for what the occasion demands, a kind of Odyssean adequacy to the task in hand, and this line-by-line vigilance builds up into a completely credible imagined world. -from the Introduction by Seamus Heaney


[Robert Fitzgerald's translation is] a masterpiece . . . An Odyssey worthy of the original. - The Nation [Fitzgerald's Odyssey and Iliad ] open up once more the unique greatness of Homer's art at the level above the formula; yet at the same time they do not neglect the brilliant texture of Homeric verse at the level of the line and the phrase. - The Yale Review [In] Robert Fitzgerald's translation . . . there is no anxious straining after mighty effects, but rather a constant readiness for what the occasion demands, a kind of Odyssean adequacy to the task in hand, and this line-by-line vigilance builds up into a completely credible imagined world. -from the Introduction by Seamus Heaney


Author Information

Homer was probably born around 725BC on the Coast of Asia Minor, now the coast of Turkey, but then really a part of Greece. Homer was the first Greek writer whose work survives. He was one of a long line of bards, or poets, who worked in the oral tradition. Homer and other bards of the time could recite, or chant, long epic poems. Both works attributed to Homer - the Iliad and the Odyssey - are over ten thousand lines long in the original. Homer must have had an amazing memory but was helped by the formulaic poetry style of the time. In the Iliad Homer sang of death and glory, of a few days in the struggle between the Greeks and the Trojans. Mortal men played out their fate under the gaze of the gods. The Odyssey is the original collection of tall traveller's tales. Odysseus, on his way home from the Trojan War, encounters all kinds of marvels from one-eyed giants to witches and beautiful temptresses. His adventures are many and memorable before he gets back to Ithaca and his faithful wife Penelope. We can never be certain that both these stories belonged to Homer. In fact 'Homer' may not be a real name but a kind of nickname meaning perhaps 'the hostage' or 'the blind one'. Whatever the truth of their origin, the two stories, developed around three thousand years ago, may well still be read in three thousand years' time. Robert Fagles (1933-2008) was Arthur W. Marks '19 Professor of Comparative Literature, Emeritus, at Princeton University. He was the recipient of the 1997 PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His translations include Sophocles's Three Theban Plays, Aeschylus's Oresteia (nominated for a National Book Award), Homer's Iliad (winner of the 1991 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award by The Academy of American Poets), Homer's Odyssey, and Virgil's Aeneid. Bernard Knox (1914-2010) was Director Emeritus of Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. He taught at Yale University for many years. Among his numerous honors are awards from the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His works include The Heroic Temper- Studies in Sophoclean Tragedy, Oedipus at Thebes- Sophocles' Tragic Hero and His Time and Essays Ancient and Modern (awarded the 1989 PEN/Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award).

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