Classics

The Odyssey by Homer; Daniel Mendelsohn (Translator, Introduction by, Introductions and notes by) "This may be the best translation of The Odyssey yet."--Edith Hall, The Telegraph A magnificent feat of translation, hailed by classicists and poets alike as a "momentous achievement": "thrilling," "rich and rhythmical," "superb," "mesmerizing," "searingly faithful--yet absolutely original."   With this edition of Homer's Odyssey, the celebrated author, critic, and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn brings the great epic to vividly poetic new life. Widely known for his essays on classical literature and culture in The New Yorker and many other publications, Mendelsohn gives us a line-for-line rendering of The Odyssey that is both engrossing as poetry and true to its source. Rejecting the streamlining and modernizing approach of many recent translations, he artfully reproduces the epic's formal qualities--meter, enjambment, alliteration, assonance--and in so doing restores to Homer's masterwork its archaic grandeur. Mendelsohn's expansive six-beat line, far closer to the original than that of other recent translations, allows him to capture each of Homer's dense verses without sacrificing the amplitude and shadings of the original. The result is the richest, most ample, most precise, and most musical Odyssey in English, conveying the beauty of its poetry, the excitement of its hero's adventures, and the profundity of its insights. Supported by an extensive introduction and the fullest notes and commentary currently available, Daniel Mendelsohn's Odyssey is poised to become the authoritative version of this magnificent and enduringly influential masterpiece.

The Odyssey by Homer; Emily Wilson (Translator) Composed at the rosy-fingered dawn of world literature almost three millennia ago, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty and power; about marriage and family; about travelers, hospitality, and the yearning for home. This fresh, authoritative translation captures the beauty of this ancient poem as well as the drama of its narrative. Its characters are unforgettable, none more so than the "complicated" hero himself, a man of many disguises, many tricks, and many moods, who emerges in this version as a more fully rounded human being than ever before. Written in iambic pentameter verse and a vivid, contemporary idiom, Emily Wilson's Odyssey sings with a voice that echoes Homer's music; matching the number of lines in the Greek original, the poem sails along at Homer's swift, smooth pace. A fascinating, informative introduction explores the Bronze Age milieu that produced the epic, the poem's major themes, the controversies about its origins, and the unparalleled scope of its impact and influence. Maps drawn especially for this volume, a pronunciation glossary, and extensive notes and summaries of each book make this is an Odyssey that will be treasured by a new generation of readers.

Penelope's Bones by Emily Hauser Weaving together literary and archaeological evidence, Emily Hauser illuminates the rich, intriguing lives of the real women behind Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.   Achilles. Agamemnon. Odysseus. Hector. The lives of these and many other men in the greatest epics of ancient Greece have been pored over endlessly in the past three millennia. But these are not just tales about heroic men. There are scores of women as well--complex, fascinating women whose stories have gone unexplored for far too long.   In Penelope's Bones, award-winning classicist and historian Emily Hauser pieces together compelling evidence from archaeological excavations and scientific discoveries to unearth the richly textured lives of women in Bronze Age Greece--the era of Homer's heroes. Here, for the first time, we come to understand the everyday lives and experiences of the real women who stand behind the legends of Helen, Briseis, Cassandra, Aphrodite, Circe, Athena, Hera, Calypso, Penelope, and more. In this captivating journey through Homer's world, Hauser explains era-defining discoveries, such as the excavation of Troy and the decipherment of Linear B tablets that reveal thousands of captive women and their children; more recent finds like the tomb of the Griffin Warrior at Pylos, whose tomb contents challenge traditional gender attributes; DNA evidence showing that groups of warriors buried near the Black Sea with their weapons and steeds were, in fact, Amazon-like female fighters; a prehistoric dye workshop on Crete that casts fresh light on "women's work" of dyeing, spinning, and weaving textiles; and a superbly preserved shipwreck off the coast of Turkey whose contents tell of the economic and diplomatic networks crisscrossing the Bronze Age Mediterranean.   Essential reading for fans of Madeline Miller or Natalie Haynes, this riveting new history brings to life the women of the Bronze Age Aegean as never before, offering a groundbreaking reassessment of the ancient world.