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About this book
This wide-ranging collection makes available to specialists and nonspecialists alike important critical work on the Odyssey produced during the last half century. The ten essays address five major concerns: the poem's programmatic representation of social and religious institutions and values; its transformation of folktales and traditional stories into epic adventures; its representation of gender roles and, in particular, of Penelope; its narrative strategies and form; and its relation to the Iliad, especially to that epic's distinctive conception of heroism.
In the introduction, Seth L. Schein describes the poetic background to the work and suggests a variety of interpretive approaches, some of which are developed in the essays that follow. These essays include previously published work by Jean-Pierre Vernant, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Pietro Pucci, and Charles P. Segal. There also are a new essay by Laura M. Slatkin, two revised and expanded ones by Nancy Felson-Rubin and Michael N. Nagler, and three appearing in English for the first time by Uvo Hlscher, Karl Reinhardt, and Vernant. The result is a collection that juxtaposes older, often hard-to-find articles with significant newer pieces in a way that allows for a fruitful dialogue among them.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgment
- Introduction: Seth L. Schein
- Land and Sacrifice in the Odyssey: A Study of Religious and Mythical Meanings: Pierre Vidal-Naquet
- Death with Two Faces: Jean-Pierre Vernant
- The Adventures in the Odyssey: Karl Reinhardt
- Penelope and the Suitors: Uvo Hölscher
- Dread Goddess Revisited: Michael N. Nagler
- Penelope’s Perspective: Character from Plot: Nancy Felson-Rubin
- The Refusal of Odysseus: Jean-Pierre Vernant
- The Song of the Sirens: Pietro Pucci
- Kleos and Its Ironies in the Odyssey: Charles Segal
- Composition by Theme and the Metis of the Odyssey: Laura M. Slatkin
- Biblography
- Contributors
- Index of Passages Discussed and Cited
- General Index
- About the Author