Samuel Eliot Bassett's classic work The Poetry of Homer investigates the rhetorical techniques that have made the Iliad and the Odyssey speak to audiences throughout the ages. Combining a sublime poetic sensitivity with thorough scholarship this work offers original analyses of many topics, including the Homeric narrator's presentation of his story, his evocation of character through direct speech, the organization of speeches and descriptions into vivd dramatic situations, the pacing and emotional weight of similes and narratorial interventions, and the expressive variation in rhythms and word-groupings. A prolific and insightful contributor to Homeric scholarship, Bassett was invited to deliver the Sather Classical Lecture at Berkeley, but he died with the manuscript unpublished. This work, published posthumously in 1938 as The Poetry of Homer, has left its mark on a generation of classicists. Lexington is proud to bring such an important and influential book back into print in this new edition, edited and introduced by Bruce Heiden with a foreword by Greg Nagy.
About the AuthorSamuel Bassett was professor at the University of Vermont from 1905 to his death in 1936. Although he wrote extensively on Homer, The Poetry of Homer was his only book. Bruce Heiden, Associate Professor of Greek and Latin at Ohio State University, is the author of Tragic Rhetoric: An Interpretation of Sophocles' Trachiniae, as well as many articles on Homeric poetry.
ReviewsThis is the best book on Homer in the Engligh language. * Necj Reviews *
Book InformationISBN 9780739106969
Author S. E. BassettFormat Paperback
Page Count 306
Imprint Lexington BooksPublisher Lexington Books
Weight(grams) 431g
Dimensions(mm) 228mm * 149mm * 22mm