Description
Book SynopsisDramatic and accessible selections from The Iliad, The Odyssey, and the Homeric Hymns make this an ideal text for mythology, literature, and composition study at all levels. With full introduction, background material, analytical and creative writing suggestions, sample essays, glossaries, and complete indexes, this book is a teaching jewel.
Trade ReviewI know of no Greek mythology textbook to rival Homer and the Homeric Hymns. Helaine Smith has dipped her net into Homer's epics and the Homeric Hymns and pulled out the stories, alive and flashing, fresh from the Greek, which Smith has translated with loving sensitivity. This book will teach students how to read, analyze, and write. It is a treasure. -- Rosanna Warren, professor of Humanities, Boston University; poet and critic
Homer and the Homeric Hymns is equally strong as a text for English composition, as an education in mythology, and as an introduction to Greek literature. Needless to say, there are few good books that achieve any one of these aims, and this text does all three with finesse and charm. -- Frank Nisetich, professor of Classics,
Emeritus, University of Massachusetts
Homer and the Homeric Hymns is loaded with resources-glossaries, questions for discussion, analytical and creative exercises, writing models, and suggestions for supplementary reading. Each chapter is self-contained and can be studied individually, so the text can be used as both a close-at-hand resource for the swamped teacher and as a core text for teachers who are designing an entire semester's course of study. -- Mara Taylor-Heine, Chair, Upper School English Department, The Chapin School
Clear and challenging, Homer and the Homeric Hymns provides college students in freshman writing and survey classes with context, analytic glosses, and narrative bridges that link crucial and substantial passages from the poems, presenting them for special attention as though they were sets of diamonds on a long string of gems. -- John C. Briggs, University of California, Riverside
Table of Contents
Introduction Part I: The Gods in The Iliad Chapter 1: Hera's Seduction of Zeus Chapter 2: Aphrodite, Athene, and Ares on the Battlefield Chapter 3: Hephaistos at Feast and Forge Chapter 4: Apollo at the Ramparts Chapter 5: Athene and Peitho Chapter 6: Destiny and the Limits of Zeus' Power Chapter 7: Hermes Eriounios Part II: The Gods in The Odyssey Chapter 8: Poseidon's Anger Chapter 9: Athene's Humor Chapter 10: Calypso and Hephaistos, Unlucky in Love Chapter 11: The House of Hades Part III: The Gods in The Homeric Hymns Chapter 12: Aphrodite and Anchises Chapter 13: Demeter, Persephone, and Hades Chapter 14: Dionysos Chapter 15: The Birth of Aphrodite, Athene, and Apollo Glossary Index Index of citations
