Reading the Odyssey:
Selected Interpretive Essays
Edited and introduced by Seth L. Schein

Paper | 1995 | $33.95 / £19.95
288 pp. | 6 x 9

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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.

Table of Contents

Subject Areas:

• Classics
• British Literature

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For customers in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Australia
Paper: $33.95 ISBN13: 978-0-691-04439-2

For customers in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and India
Paper: £19.95 ISBN13: 978-0-691-04439-2

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File created: 7/1/2008

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