{"product_id":"9781491807736","title":"On First Looking into Homer's Odyssey: Exploring The Bard's Dramatic Artistry","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe author of  \u003ci\u003eOn First Looking into Homer’s Odyssey\u003c\/i\u003e reports of this work:\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMy enthusiasm for the Homeric epics dates to 1933, when in Frank Durkee’s sophomore English class in Somerville (New Jersey) High School, I was introduced to the Odyssey in the Butcher \u0026amp; Lang prose translation.  We students had already been exposed to Classical mythology in the elementary grades, and I had read on my own Bulfinch’s \u003ci\u003eAge of Fable, \u003c\/i\u003ea treasured birthday present\u003ci\u003e.\u003c\/i\u003e  Mr. Durkee presented the Odyssey as a collection of fabulous adventures, and I read with excitement about the Cyclops, the witch Circe, the Sirens and Scylla and Charybdis.  In my late teens and early twenties I read and re-read the Iliad in various translations, eager to explore the events which preceded the Odyssey.  In my mid-thirties, I undertook to master Classical Greek, impelled in great part by a desire to read Homer in the original.  When I declared to Vera Lachmann, a Brooklyn College Classics professor who invited me to read Greek with her on Saturday mornings, that I was coming to believe that there was Homer and other literature, she exclaimed, “It’s about time you came to that conclusion!”   Returning to university in 1961 to pursue courses toward a doctorate, I exposed in my dissertation Byron’s critique of the Homeric epics in his comic epic, \u003ci\u003eDon Juan.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAppointed in 1966 to found a Classics department at Brock University, a newly established Ontario institution, I developed an intensive survey course of Classical literature in translation (from which I hoped to recruit students for courses in Latin and Greek).  The first day of class of the survey course, I would announce: “People think that if they can read a newspaper they know how to read, and, indeed, you may be able to read a bestseller with minimal effort, but the works we will be studying this year require a special effort, a special kind of reading. Masterworks like the Homeric epics are to be approached as congealed life.  Almost every line exposes a view of the world that Cicero denominated \u003ci\u003ehumanitas.\u003c\/i\u003e  And so this year you are going to learn how to read the Greek and Roman classics and to investigate an alternate view of the world to the Judaeo-Christian.”\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e            The approach I have followed in the two volumes exploring Homer’s dramatic artistry is similar to that I pursued in my classes more than forty years ago.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"AuthorHouse","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47163420442864,"sku":"9781491807736","price":3.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781491807736_p0.jpg?v=1763660248","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781491807736","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}