Homer and the Heroic Tradition [Paperback]

What has been done in recent times in the fields of archaeology, linguistics, history, anthropology, and comparative oral literature, not to mention literary criticism itself, has put the whole Homeric problem in so new a light that now above all else the interested reader of Homer, whether he reads translations or the original, looks earnestly for a synoptic view, a framework by which he can shape his critical reactions within the bounds of rational and historical probability. What follows in the succeeding chapters is an attempt to formulate such a synoptic view, to bring togetherfor the first time, I believethe results of modern specialized disciplines relating to Homeric studies and the kind of criticism which, twenty years ago, was called New, but which no, in modified forms, has become simply this eras characteristic way of approaching such problems as imagery, action, and the poetic consciousness. Cedric H. Whitman, from the PrefaceA work of extraordinary distinction, one which is surely destined to be a permanent landmark in the long history of Homeric studies. Whitney J. Oates,