Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey by Sheila Murnaghan This book is a comprehensive study of the Odyssey's plot, which shows how the motifs of disguise and recognition are used to articulate the central values of Homeric society. The story of Odysseus' homecoming is discussed in relation to family dynamics, heroic competition, the social institutions of marriage and hospitality, gender relations, and the enduring power of song.

The Distaff Side: Representing the Female in Homer's Odyssey by Beth Cohen Feminine in orientation, but not narrowly feminist in approach, this first interdisciplinary work on the Odyssey's female characters will have a broad audience amongst scholars and students working in classical studies, iconography and art history, women's studies, mythology, and ancient history.

The Hero's Journey by Harold Bloom; Blake Hobby Provides an examination of the hero's journey as a plot device in classic literary works.

The Hero and the Goddess: The Odyssey As Pathway to Personal Transformation by Jean Houston All great stories can change our lives, and practically none is more transformational than Homer's The Odyssey, which had a power so great that it launched Greek civilization and has influenced the West ever since. In this fresh approach to self-realization, human potentials leader Jean Houston provides empowering experiential exercises at every key stage of Homer's epic to make The Odyssey our own journey. As we set sail with Odysseus, together we endure loss and suffering, the search for the divine Beloved, and the joy of finally arriving home.

Homer's Odyssey by Harold Bloom (Editor, Introduction by) Homer's Odyssey edited by and with an introduction by Harold Bloom. A contemporary literary views book.

Homer Between History and Fiction in Imperial Greek Literature by Lawrence Kim Did Homer tell the 'truth' about the Trojan War? If so, how much, and if not, why not? The issue was hardly academic to the Greeks living under the Roman Empire, given the centrality of both Homer, the father of Greek culture, and the Trojan War, the event that inaugurated Greek history, to conceptions of Imperial Hellenism. This book examines four Greek texts of the Imperial period that address the topic.

Homeric Voices: Discourse, Memory, Gender by Elizabeth Minchin Drawing on the disciplines of sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and cognitive psychology, Elizabeth Minchin studies the speeches that Homer attributes to his characters. She describes how the poet may have used his memory for everyday talk to construct such speeches, and examines how they reflect the speaker's age, status, and gender. - ;Homeric Voices is a study, from a compositional point of view, of the substantial speeches and exchanges of speech that Homer depicts in his songs.

A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey by Irene J. F. de Jong Drawing on the concepts of modern narratology as well as the insights of Homeric scholarship, it discusses the role of narrator and narratees, methods of characterization and description, plot-development, focalization, and the narrative exploitation of type-scenes.

Penelopean Poetics by Barbara Clayton A Penelopean Poetics looks at the relationship between gender ideology and the self-referential poetics fo the Odyssey through the figure of Penelope. Her poetics become a discursive thread through which different feminine voices can realize their resistant capacities. Author, Barbara Clayton, informs discussions in the classics, gender studies, and literary criticism.

Shipwrecked: Disaster and Transformation in Homer, Shakespeare, Defoe, and the Modern World by James Morrison Presents the first comparative study of notable literary shipwrecks from the past four thousand years, focusing on Homer's Odyssey, Shakespeare's The Tempest, and Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. The recurrent treatment of shipwrecks in the creative arts demonstrates an enduring fascination with this archetypal scene: a shipwreck survivor confronting the elements.

The Cambridge Companion to Homer by Robert Fowler In this volume an international team of scholars discusses the poems, their background and composition and, most originally, their subsequent reception down to the present day.

Homer's the Odyssey by Harold Bloom Introduction / Harold Bloom -- Transition and ritual in Odysseus' return / Charles Segal -- Odysseus and the genus "hero" / Margalit Finkelberg -- The wanderings / S. Douglas Olson -- Internal narrators, female and male / Lillian Eileen Doherty -- Penelope as moral agent / Helene P. Foley -- Rival homecomings / Frederick Ahl and Hanna M. Roisman -- Penelope's perspective : character from plot / Nancy Felson-Rubin -- The structures of The Odyssey / Stephen V. Tracy -- Kalypso and the function of Book Five / Bruce Louden -- In the beginning was Proteus / Mark Buchan -- The stakes of the plot / Richard Heitman.

Homer : a collection of critical essays by George Steiner & Robert Fagles A selection of critical essays by Joyce, Tolstoy, Kafka, Pound and others.

Greece in the Making 1200-479 BC by Robin Osborne Offers a narrative which acknowledges the later traditions, as traditions, but insists that we must primarily confront the contemporary evidence, which is in large part archaeological and art historical, and must make sense of it in its own terms.

Greek Religion by Walter Burkert; John Raffan (Translator) Burkert draws on archaeological discoveries, insights from other disciplines, and inscriptions in Linear B to reconstruct the practices and beliefs of the Minoan–Mycenaean age. The major part of his book is devoted to the archaic and classical epochs. He describes the various rituals of sacrifice and libation and explains Greek beliefs about purification. He investigates the inspiration behind the great temples at Olympia, Delphi, Delos, and the Acropolis—discussing the priesthood, sanctuary, and oracles. Considerable attention is given to the individual gods, the position of the heroes, and beliefs about the afterlife. The different festivals are used to illuminate the place of religion in the society of the city-state.

A History of Greek Religion (Second Edition) by Martin P. Nilsson Contents Minoan-Mycenaean religion and its survival in Greek religion -- Origins of Greek mythology -- Primitive belief and ritual -- Gods of nature and of human life -- The Homeric anthropomorphism and rationalism -- Legalism and mysticism -- The civic religion -- The religion of the cultured classes and the religion of the peasants.

Homer's Odyssey and the Near East by Bruce Louden The Odyssey's larger plot is composed of a number of distinct genres of myth, all of which are extant in various Near Eastern cultures (Mesopotamian, West Semitic, and Egyptian). Unexpectedly, the Near Eastern culture with which the Odyssey has the most parallels is the Old Testament. Consideration of how much of the Odyssey focuses on non-heroic episodes - hosts receiving guests, a king disguised as a beggar, recognition scenes between long-separated family members - reaffirms the Odyssey's parallels with the Bible. In particular the book argues that the Odyssey is in a dialogic relationship with Genesis, which features the same three types of myth that comprise the majority of the Odyssey: theoxeny, romance (Joseph in Egypt), and Argonautic myth (Jacob winning Rachel from Laban). The Odyssey also offers intriguing parallels to the Book of Jonah, and Odysseus' treatment by the suitors offers close parallels to the Gospels' depiction of Christ in Jerusalem.

Homer's People by Johannes Haubold This book examines the role and character of Homer's people, laoi, in Homeric story-telling, arguing that Homeric poetry is crucially concerned with the people as a basis for communal life. Both the Iliad and the Odyssey are read as sustained meditations on the processes involved in protecting and destroying the people. The investigation draws on a wide range of approaches from formulaic analysis to the study of early performance contexts

Homer Between History and Fiction in Imperial Greek Literature by Lawrence Kim Did Homer tell the 'truth' about the Trojan War? If so, how much, and if not, why not? The issue was hardly academic to the Greeks living under the Roman Empire, given the centrality of both Homer, the father of Greek culture, and the Trojan War, the event that inaugurated Greek history, to conceptions of Imperial Hellenism. This book examines four Greek texts of the Imperial period that address the topic.

Moral Codes and Social Structure in Ancient Greece by Joseph M. Bryant Seeks to explicate the dynamic currents of classical Hellenic ethics and social philosophy by situating those idea-complexes in their socio-historical and intellectual contexts.

The Odyssey in Athens: Myths of Cultural Origins by Erwin F. Cook A study in poetic interaction, The Odyssey in Athens explores the ways in which narrative structure and parallels within and between epic poems create or disclose meaning. Erwin F. Cook also broadens the scope of this intertextual approach to include the relationship of Homeric epic to ritual. Specifically he argues that the Odyssey achieved its form as a written text within the context of Athenian civic cults during the reign of Peisistratos.

Politics and Society in Ancient Greece by Nicholas F. Jones Western democracies often trace their political roots back to Ancient Greece. While politics today may seem the dusty domain of lawmakers and pundits, in the classical era virtually no aspect of life was beyond its reach. Political life was not limited to acts of a legislature, magistrates, and the courts but routinely included the activities of social clubs, the patronage system, and expression through literature, art, and architecture.

The Returns of Odysseus: Colonization and Ethnicity by Irad Malkin Irad Malkin contributes here to the current lively discussion of encounters among Greeks and non-Greeks. Through the prism of myths, he argues, notions of ethnicity and collective identity were articulated. Focussing in particular on myths about Odysseus and other heroes who visited foreign lands on their mythical voyages homeward after the Trojan War, he shows how these Return-myths influenced actual encounters during the time of early exploration and colonization in the western Mediterranean.

Trojan Women by Euripides; Alan Shapiro (Editor); Peter Burian (Editor)