The Cambridge Companion to Homer is a guide to the essential aspects of Homeric criticism and scholarship, including the reception of the poems in ancient and modern times. Written by an international team of scholars, it is intended to be the first port of call for students at all levels, with introductions to important subjects and suggestions for further exploration. Alongside traditional topics like the Homeric Question, the divine apparatus of the poems, the formulae, the characters and the archaeological background, there are detailed discussions of similes, speeches, the poet as story-teller and the genre of epic both within Greece and worldwide. The reception chapters include assessments of ancient Greek and Roman readings as well as selected modern interpretations from the eighteenth century to the present day. Chapters on Homer in English translation and 'Homer' in the history of ideas round out the collection.

Contents

Introduction Robert Fowler
Part I. The Poems and their Narrator:
1. The Iliad: an unpredictable classic Donald Lateiner
2. The Odyssey and its explorations Michael Silk
3. The storyteller and his audience Ruth Scodel
Part II. The Characters:
4. The gods in the Homeric epics Emily Kearns
5. Manhood and heroism Michael Clarke
6. Gender and Homeric epic Nancy Felson and Laura Slatkin
Part III. The Poet's Craft:
7. Formulas, metre and type-scenes Matthew Clarke
8. Similes and other likenesses Richard Buxton
9. The speeches Jasper Griffin
Part IV. Text and Context:
10. Epic as genre John Miles Foley
11. The epic tradition in Greece Ken Dowden
12. Homer's society Robin Osborne
13. The Homeric question Robert Fowler
Part V. Homeric Receptions:
14. Homer and Greek literature Richard Hunter
15. Roman Homer Joseph Farrell
16. Homer and English epic Penelope Wilson
17. Homer and the Romantics Timothy Webb
18. Homer and Ulysses Vanda Zajko
19. Homer: the history of an idea James Porter
20. 'Shards and suckers': contemporary receptions of Homer Lorna Hardwick
21. Homer in English translation George Steiner