`Somehere I have never travelled before' The Hero's Journey in ancient epic [Paperback]

The ancient hero's quest for glory offers metaphors for our own struggles to reach personal integrity and wholeness. In this compelling book, Van Nortwick traces the heroic journeys in three seminal works of ancient epic poetry,The Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer'sIliad, and Virgil'sAeneid. In particular, he focuses on the relationship of the hero to one or more second selves, or alter egos, showing how the poems address central truths about the cost of heroic self-assertion: that the pursuit of glory can lead to alienation from one's own deepest self, and that spiritual wholeness can only be achieved by confronting what appears, at first, to be the very negation of that self. With his unique combination of literary, psychological, and spiritual insights, Van Nortwick demonstrates the relevance of ancient literature to enduring human problems and to contemporary issues.

Somewhere I Have never Travelledwill interest anyone who wishes to explore the roots of human behavior and the relationship between life and art.

I highly recommend [the book] as an engaging and insightful study, of interest both to classicists and students of literature in general....A fluid, readable commentary on the second self in ancient epic. --New England Classical Newsletter & Journal

Clearly written and well organized; Van Nortwick reads texts closely and frequently draws parallels within and between these epics. His book will prove useful to undergraduates and to teachers beginning their work with these epics. --Choice

A valuable study that will repay the time spent with it, both by readers interested in the hero's journey as the search for self-realization and by readers who delight in close, insightful, personal readings of three great epics. --Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature

This books offers a language for analyses that many have been trying to articulate for years.l³#