Homer's the "Iliad and the "Odyssey"

Books That Changed the World

by Alberto Manguel

'The Iliad' and 'The Odyssey' are perhaps the most influential works in the history of Western literature. This analysis of their creation and influence establishes how, precisely, these two poems, written nearly 3,000 years ago, have come to resonate throughout the world. 'Atlantic Books has achieved a publishing coup with its 'Books that Shook the World' series... short biographies of great books, securing the best people to write them and ensuring that the remit to produce compendious, clear and engaged accounts.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Books About Books, Literary Criticism, Biography, Poetry, Mythology

294 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Alberto Manguel (born 1948 in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine-born writer, translator, and editor. He is the author of numerous non-fiction books such as The Dictionary of Imaginary Places (co-written with Gianni Guadalupi in 1980) and A History of Reading (1996) The Library at Night (2007) and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey: A Biography (2008), and novels such as News From a Foreign Country Came (1991).

Manguel believes in the central importance of the book in societies of the written word where, in recent times, the intellectual act has lost most of its prestige. Libraries (the reservoirs of collective memory) should be our essential symbol, not banks. Humans can be defined as reading animals, come into the world to decipher it and themselves.

Reviews

[Marc Lamot · Rating 3 out of 5]

You might not believe it, but I had never heard of Alberto Manguel. The Argentinian (born 1948) is, so I learned, a prolific writer and a household name in the world of books and literature. His publication list includes dozens of books. A gap in my culture, indeed. And I must confess: I'm quite impressed by the erudition he displays in this book on Homer. In a sense, you could call it an intellectual history of the Western world. Because that's its focus: the afterlife of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

That disappointed me a bit, because I had expected a substantive analysis and reflection on the work of the Greek poet (or whoever was behind those epics). What Manguel offers here is how Homer's oeuvre has endured, been placed on a pedestal, taken down again, largely forgotten, rediscovered, and extolled, always interpreted according to one's own background, values, and sensitivities, and then manipulated, distorted, and so on. Absolutely fascinating, of course. But I must say Manguel rushes through it all, almost encyclopedically, with an accumulation of names and information that can sometimes drown the reader. Every now and then, an illuminating glimpse into the original work itself resonates, but unfortunately—for me—not enough. Rather 2.5 stars.

[Jan-Maat]

A book about the reception of the Iliad and the Odyssey, from the mighty trunk run branches, and from the branches twigs. One feels the tree wants a vigorous pruning, perhaps to raise the crown and reduce the canopy by half or so. The opinions of Byron and Blake on the translations of the Iliad and Odyssey by Alexander Pope - who cares? A chapter on Homer in medieval Islam in which the only interesting thing that is said is that there was no medieval translation of Homer into Arabic? Ditto a chapter on 'Christian' Homer which is about saints Jerome and Augustine having their cake and eat it - being both Christian and finding a place generally for pagan literature, with nothing specific to say about Homer, within the new religion?

Manguel here can be interesting, but when we have C.G. Jung responding to Freud, who is responding to Neitzsche, who was writing in response to Goethe, who was commenting upon F.A. Wolf, who had been studying Homer, one notices that one is a fair distance away from either the Iliad or the Odyssey.

I guess I might have liked this more if I hadn't read it in relation to the group read of the Odyssey. However that is where I was, and so my reading was purposive. I wanted insight into the Odyssey, an interesting thought on the Iliad would be a bonus. However that is not the intention of the book, which instead I will say with respect in my heart is the outpouring of a demented librarian who claims that a golden thread runs through all the books in the library collection.

Manguel almost starts with the idea that Iliad embodies the metaphor that life is war, while the Odyssey says life is a journey, as such, one might say that these are not books that shook the world but are the fathers and mothers of a great slice of literature, the struggle and the journey seemingly without end crossbreeding and bringing forth new monsters, one imagines taking fright at the number of authors springing forth from Homer's loins, it would be an austerely slim volume that was about the writers unaffected by either the Iliad, the Odyssey, or their characters, or techniques.

Typical of the differences between myself and Manguel was that my spirit lifted when twice he mentioned Milman Parry's work among the traditional singers of the former Yugoslavia and yet how for Manguel, those were throw away digressions that didn't merit their own chapter. My desire for a pseudo biography of Iliad and Odyssey looking at the construction and transmission of traditional oral epics, the 'fixing' of Iliad and Odyssey in 6th century BC Athens, the written version produced in Ptlomenian Alexandria, the manuscript tradition down to the earliest print editions was not satisfied, such poor concerns don't enter into Manguel's vision. Which is of the literary response to Homer.

But he was interesting too in Samuel Butler's assertion of the Odyssey as written by a Sicilian woman naively I had assumed that there was a positive basis for Butler's theory, in fact the justification a negative one - the mistakes he found in the work such as a ship having two rudders and a bird of prey pulling a smaller bird apart in mid air ones he felt impossible for a man to make and therefore the Odyssey in his view could only have been composed by a woman, I feel there is a point here about the audience too since despite such mistakes the work thrived and came to be seen as the paramount literary monument of ancient Greece. he sees a counter balance to the philologists. The philologists implicitly say that the works of Homer can by understood only through study and analysis and deconstruction. Butler says anybody can punt their own theory, roll up, roll up and 'ave a go Sir? Madam? For Goethe the work of literary understanding as practised by the philologists would lead to the questioning of all received authority, first Homer then the Bible. The flight then to wayward individual reinterpretation something like a remystification of the world. Legend gives birth to legend, the sleep of reason brings forth monsters, but for once everyone is happy, well almost.

[Eylül Görmüş · Rating 5 out of 5]

"'Hayat bir yolculuk yahut bir savaş olduğuna göre' diyordu Raymond Queaneau, 'her hikaye ya İlyada ya da Odysseia olacaktır.'" ❤️

Nasıl güzel bir kitaptır bu ya! Bir alıntı daha yapayım başlamadan; Montaigne şöyle demiş Homeros için: "İnsanoğlunun dudaklarında, onun eserleri ve adı kadar uzun hiçbir şey kalmamıştır. Troya gibi, Helen gibi ve belki de hiç yaşanmamış savaşları gibi bilinen ve kabullenilen başka hiçbir şey yoktur. Çocuklarımıza hala onun yarattığı isimleri veriyoruz. Sadece bireysel soyağaçları değil, birçok ulus da kökenini Homeros'un eserlerinde arar. Türklerin imparatoru II. Mehmet, Papa II. Pius'a şu mektubu yollamıştır: 'İtalyanların bana karşı toplanmasına şaşırıyorum çünkü her ikimiz de ortak Troya kökenine sahibiz ve tıpkı İtalyanlar gibi ben de Yunanlardan, her nasılsa bana karşı sarıldıkları Hektor'un öcünü almak istiyorum.'"

Alberto Manguel'in İlyada ve Odysseia'sı, Homeros'a ve iki dev destanına çok, çok zarif bir saygı duruşu. Manguel bu iki metnin kökeninden başlıyor anlatmaya, Homeros'un kim (yahut kimler?) olduğuna dair savları da sıralıyor elbette (savlar demişken, Homeros'un bir kadın olması gerektiğini çünkü metindeki türlü mantık hatalarını ancak bir kadının yapabileceğini iddia eden bir 'araştırmacı' da var, ay yazarken sinirim bozuldu bakın, daha önce Manguel'in başka bir kitabında da okumuştum bunu, burada detayına vâkıf oldum, ah erkekler, ah amcacım ya), tarih boyunca metinle ilişkimizin nasıl evrildiğini, Homeros'un bir dönem ne tür kutuplaşmalara sebep olduğunu ancak sonuçta dinler, ideolojiler, üretim biçimleri, tanımlayıcılar - her şey ama her şey değişirken nasıl dev bir sabit olarak kalmayı başardığını anlatıyor. Homeros'tan başlayan yolculuk elbette Vergilius'a, Dante'ye, Milton'a, Joyce'a, Kavafis'e; hatta Ingmar Bergman'a, Federico Fellini'ye uzanıyor.

Ezcümle, nefis bir metin sahiden. Gözlerim dolarak bitirdim kitabı. Anlatıdan heyecan duyan, hatta anlatmaktan bıkmayan hepimiz bu kör ozanın çocukları, torunlarıyız çünkü - iyi ki öyleyiz. 2025'te İlyada'yı bu kez Erman Gören çevirisinden okumayı planlıyorum, öncesinde bu kitabı okumak şahane oldu!

[Sense of History]

Almost encyclopedic overview of the afterlife of the Iliad and the Odyssey. A bit too erudite to my taste. But in the end Manguel aptly summarizes how we relate to Antiquity and the traces it left:
“Homer is a message in cipher. Because his identity is uncertain and his books offer no clear clues to their creation, Homer, like his Iliad and Odyssey, is open to endless interpretations. Homer may be what we understand by the broad concept of "Antiquity," a vicious circle that assumes the definition of what it attempts to define, or perhaps he is what we understand by "poetry" or "humanity." Homer may represent that dark, early period in our shared history from which we have some beautiful artifacts without truly knowing how those artifacts were conceived or perceived.”

Also see the review in my general account: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a bit skeptical when I picked up Alberto Manguel’s “Biography” on Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey. The book clocks in at just over 200 pages, and its focus is meant to show the influence of these great books on the Western world! Well, after finishing it, I’d read anything by this guy. Manguel is incredibly learned, but he wears it lightly, and he writes like a dream. If anything, I’d say he’s pleasantly subversive, since the book is probably a great tease, designed to the leave reader wanting to either read (if they haven’t done so already) Homer, or re-read him. At the very least, to explore some of the many works by other writers influenced by Homer.

Though Manguel weaves back and forth a bit, he basically starts at the beginning, with Homer himself. Was he a real person? What do we know about him? Or was he a collection of fragments, and Idea himself? There are some hazy facts or stories about a man named Homer that are impossible to verify. But we still don’t know much about Shakespeare. (Personally, I believe there was a poet named Homer.) After a Homer of sorts is established, Manguel takes off, in short, quick hitting chapters that discuss Homer’s influence on Virgil, the philosophers of the Greek and Roman worlds, the Christian Homer, Homer and Islam, Homer and the Reformation, etc., all the way up to the present time. And the great names roll on by: Pope, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Tennyson, Nietzche, Freud, Joyce, Simone Weil. However, one omission surprised me: Christopher Logue, and his current rewriting of the Iliad (War Music, and following volumes). Logue’s effort has been a highly praised one (George Steiner is a major fan), and it seemed almost glaring that Logue’s ongoing treatment was skipped over by Manguel. But that’s a minor quibble. I can’t imagine a better introduction to Homer and his great books than Manguel’s wonderful “biography.”

[Esteban Forero · Rating 5 out of 5]

“El legado de Homero” parece una de esas clases que los maestros llevan a sus estudiantes con el esmero que motiva la pasión, el rigor y el cariño. El resultado es un trabajo memorable e inspirador.

Manguel ha escrito un libro inspirado en la misteriosa existencia de Homero, cuya genialidad parece proyectarse en la “Iliada” y la “Odisea”, dos semillas poderosas de las que emerge la narrativa universal, desde las “Mil noches y una noches”, pasando por Goethe, Borges y llegando hasta el “Ulises” de Joyce.

La escritura de Alberto Manguel tiene la facultad de actualizar un autor que, por milenario y y desconocido, habría desaparecido en el anonimato absoluto de no ser por sus lectores. Pero el argentino se convierte en un Virgilio que lleva al lector por los círculos de interpretación que tanto la “Iliada” y la “Odisea” han motivado para convertirse en clásicos ineludibles de la literatura, el pensamiento y la cultura universal.

[Sine · Rating 3 out of 5]

ben bu kitapcağızı evden çalıştığım günlerde, öğle aramda filan oturur birer ikişer makale okur, böyle böyle 2-3 haftaya bitiririm diye düşünerek seçmiştim. birkaç gün sonra oturduğum binaya "riskli yapı" yazısı asıldı, ev aradım, taşındım, sonra genel bir kaosa sürüklendik, kurgu okumak daha iyi gelmeye başladı derken bu kitap ikinci plana düştü... derken derken bitirdim.

homeros ve onun iki büyük destanına dair, bunlara çeşitli boyutlardan yaklaşan felsefi ve tarihsel makaleler. elbette çok derin, çok teknik bir metin değil; okuması kolay ve bence biraz "eğer homeros'a/ilyada'ya/odysseia'ya bir de buradan yaklaşmak isterseniz buradan başlayın" kapıları açıyor okura. bazı kapılar hayli ilgimi çekti, bazılarını çarpıp çıkasım geldi, ama bir şekilde okudum. özellikle homeros kadın olabilir miydi kısmında HEHE diye başlayıp "geminin dümenini bilemezdi" gibi teknik hatalardan bu sonuca varması ile gayet iyi gidiyorken "çok mantık hatası vardı ondan kadındır kesin" dediği an YAAAA Bİ SUS BE ADAM olmadım mı? oldum. belirtmeden edemeyeceğim.

bu arada, bence azra erhat'ın homeros'a dair yazdıklarını okumak daha keyifliydi ya. bizimle duygudaş bir yerden bakıyor olaya.

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are so many things to like about this book, especially from chapter 9 on (1-8 being somewhat lackluster.), that I almost don't want to point out the shortcomings I found. Manguel is clearly a broad and thoughtful reader who nicely brings together the works of many other authors to show the importance The Iliad and The Odyssey have had in the literary heritage of western civilization down to our own day. So much of what he has to say is a pleasure to read. Overall he does a good job, but there are problems. A number of head-scratching errors tend to undermine my faith in his work.

For example, on p. 50 Manguel dates the Roman civil war between Marius and "Sula" (sic) to Virgil's "childhood and youth." In fact both of these men died (in 86 and 78 BC or BCE, as you prefer), and their civil war had ended (in 82), years before Virgil was born (in 70). These facts, along with the proper spelling of Sulla, are easily checked.

On p. 128 Manguel writes of Sir Philip Sidney "in the sixteenth century," which is correct, but in the next sentence he speaks of Sir Francis Bacon "a century later," which is just wrong. Sidney and Bacon were born in 1554 and 1561 respectively. They were thus contemporaries, and the works of theirs to which Manguel refers here were published only ten years apart(1595 for Sidney, 1605 for Bacon, as Manguel knows). A different century? Yes. A century later? No. Even if we allow that Sidney had actually written his Defense of Poesy in 1579, "a century later" is still wildly inaccurate.

On p. 213 Manguel says that the action of The Iliad takes place in "less than seven weeks, a mere fifty-two days." I hope no one tells my boss that a week now has eight days in it.

On p. 235 he writes "And yet, here and there, in his books lie perhaps the inklings of a answer." A answer? A editor would be more to the point.

These errors leaped off the page at me, but I know a little bit about that period of Roman History and Tudor/Stuart England. That makes me wonder about errors that I don't have the knowledge to spot. Sometimes the mistakes just seem sloppy work, followed up by poor (or no) editing; other times he seems to be playing fast and loose with the facts in order to make a point. I don't know which is more damning. But if I can't have faith in the "facts" the author presents or the honesty with which he presents them, I am forced to doubt his interpretations. Which I regret, because I very much enjoy a lot of what he has to say.

[Tanuj Solanki · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute stunner of scholarship. It is meant to be a rabbit-hole, and damn yes it is. You will be attached to the Western canon post this, forever.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great general source book for those interested in the two great books of literature. Mangual has a keen observation.

[Tara Redd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Predictably/annoyingly walks that itch-generating line between scholarly work and cocktail conversation with your cleverest friend, leaning towards the cocktails.

[Illiterate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Manguel offers a string of colorful tidbits and learned allusions rather than historiographical arguments.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just a bunch of quotes from this book, tracing the influence of Homer through Western thought.

"Every great work of literature is either the Iliad or the Odyssey. - Raymond Queneau

"Though Homer might have been 'best and most divine' for Socrates (or rather for Plato, who made Socrates pronounce this encomium), he also presented a philosophical dilemma... those who make images of images have no place in a well-regulated world, since they produce nothing that is true... Even Homer (and here begins Plato's battle with the poet he most admires) cannot be allowed in the ideal republic because, not only does he put forward images that are untrue, he presents men and women with whose faults we sympathize, gods and goddesses whom we must judge as fallible. Literature, Plato says, feeds that part in our soul that relishes 'contemplating the woes of others', praising and pitying someone who, though 'claiming to be a good man, abandons himself to excess in his grief.' This 'is the element in us that the poets satisfy and delight' and, to avoid it, we should 'disdain the poem altogether', otherwise, 'after feeding fat the emotion of pity there, it is not easy to restrain it in our own suffering.'"

"Virgil's Aeneid, perhaps the greatest Roman literary achievement, is explicitly modeled on Homer's poems, and if Virgil owes an immense debt to Homer, the reverse is also true, because after Virgil, Homer acquired a new identity, that of Rome's earliest myth-maker. During the first Roman centuries, three legendary figures competed for the position of founder of the city: Romulus who, with his twin brother Remus, was supposed to have been suckled by a she-wolf, Ulysses the traveller, and Aeneas, the survivor of Troy. It was Marcus Terentius Varro, 'the most learned of Romans' according to the rhetorician Quintilian, who, in the first century BC, established Aeneas as the winner... but it was Virgil who transformed the legend into something resembling history, lending the defeated Trojans a posthumous victory over their enemy. Thanks to Virgil, the works of Homer, which had seemed until that point to be merely stories (albeit masterly) of battling and travel, were read after Virgil as inspired premonitions of the world to come: first of Rome and its imperial power, and later of the advent of Christianity and beyond."

"For the great scholars and readers of the early Church, the apparent conflict between the old pagan literature and the dogma of the new faith presented a difficult intellectual problem. One of the most learned of these Christian scholars, St. Jerome, attempted throughout his long life to reconcile the two. Jerome realized that he could never honestly disclaim Homer as his own beginning, nor could he ignore the intellectual and aesthetic pleasure Homer's books had given him. Instead, he could create a hierarchy, a gradus ad Parnassum of which Homer and the ancients were the necessary grounding, and the Bible the highest peak."

"By the end of the fourth century, the division between the Greek east and the Latin west half of the Empire became more evident. In the east, Church and state lent its citizens the sense of living in a divinely appointed Christian realm, while in the west, service to the emperor and service to the Christian authorities were seen as two separate duties. Intellectually, the east held as essential the traditional study of the classics, both Greek and Latin; in the west, classical scholarship was judged part and parcel of pagan beliefs. Therefore, while Homer continued to be edited, studied and read in Constantinople, in Rome he all but faded from the memory of readers... While in the east, Bishop Athanasius told holy virgins 'to have books in their hands at dawn', in the west, Christians quoted Augustine who had written approvingly of holy men who lived through 'faith, hope and charity - without books.'"

"Towards the end of the Middle Ages, scholars and poets returned, once again, to the questions that had preoccupied Jerome and Augustine regarding the relationship between Homer's stories and the stories of the Bible... a search for correspondences between what the ancients had told and what the Church had revealed, establishing a sequence of parallel readings that honoured one without dishonouring the other.. for example, Achilles in the Iliad and David in the Old Testament, or between the stages of Ulysses' return and the troubled exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. In the early fourteenth century, Albertino Mussato, the most celebrated of the members of the cenacolo padovano or Paduan Circle of Latin poets, argued that the pagan writers had expressed the same ideas as those found in Scripture, but in the form of enigmas or riddles in which they had secretly announced the coming of the True Messiah."

"Dante acquired his Homer through Virgil... in this sense, Virgil was not only Dante's guide through Hell, he was also his source and inspiration, and through him Dante was able to enjoy the experience of Homer's work... Even though the complex architecture of the afterlife realm is, to a large degree, Dante's own, the foundation-stone is Homer's."

"Michel de Montaigne, writing in the last decades of the sixteenth century, chose Homer as one of the three 'most excellent of men' of all time... 'Nothing lives on the lips of men,' wrote Montaigne, 'like his name and his work: nothing is as known or accepted as Troy, Helen and his wars - that may never have taken place on real ground. Who does not know of Hector and Achilles? Not only individual lineages but most nations seek their origins in Homer's inventions. Mehemet II, Emperor of the Turks, wrote thus to our Pope Pius II: "I am amazed that the Italians should band against me, since we both have a common Trojan origin and, like the Italians, I have an interest in avenging the blood of Hector on the Greeks whom they however favour against me."'

"But Homer could be understood as a counter-argument to the Enlightenment's view of a world driven by rationality alone, a view put forward, for instance, in Diderot's D'Alembert's Dream of 1769. The book, intelligent and humorous, consists of a series of philosophical dialogues in which Diderot proposes a revised materialist account of human history and animal life, suggesting that emotions, ideas and thoughts could be explained through biological evidence, without recourse to theology or spirituality, and dismissing all uncritical reverence for the past... For Diderot, Homer belonged to a primitive, superstitious age."

"For Shelley too, Greece was Homer. Homer's poems, he wrote in A Defence of Poetry in 1821, 'were the elements of that social system which is the column upon which all succeeding civilization has reposed. Homer embodied the ideal perfection of his age in human character; nor can we doubt that those who read his verses were awakened to an ambition of becoming like Achilles, Hector, and Ulysses: the truth and beauty of friendship, patriotism, and persevering devotion to an object, were unveiled to the depths in these immortal creations.'"

"If Homer had created the model both of craft and theme, then, Byron believed, it was the modern poet's task to translate both elements into a contemporary idiom. The subjects of war and travel in the Iliad and the Odyssey were recast into Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812) and Don Juan (1819-24), in which both heroes have something of Ulysses in their makeup and become the privileged witnesses of less than heroic Troys."

"Shortly before his death in 1832, Goethe finished the last section of his autobiography, Dichtung und Wahrheit. In it, he hails his century as one fortunate enough to have witnessed the rebirth of Homer. 'Happy is that literary age,' he wrote, 'when great works of art of the past rise to the surface again and become part of our daily dealings, for it is then that they produce a new effect. For us, Homer's sun rose again, and according to the requirements of our age... No longer did we see in those poems a violent and inflated heroic world, but rather the mirrored truth of an essential present, and we tried to make him as much ours as possible.'"

"Homer was for Nietzche a creative Apollonian force that wrote his poems 'in order to persuade us to continue to live.' Homer's gods justify human life by sharing it with us mortals; for his heroes, the greatest pain is therefore to leave this life, especially when one is young... Freud did, however, follow Nietzche in noting that the value we place on life after death was a development of post-Homeric times and, like Nietzche, quoted in support of his theory the answer Achilles gave to Ulysses in the Underworld."

"William Butler Yeats, in an essay written in 1905, which Joyce had with him in Trieste, had suggested that the time was ripe for a new writer to revisit the ancient world of the Odyssey. 'I think that we will learn again,' he said with visionary wisdom, 'how to describe at great length an old man wandering among enchanted islands, his return home at last, his slowly gathering vengeance, a flitting shape of a goddess, and a flight of arrows, and yet to make all these so different things... become... the signature or symbol of a mood of the divine imagination.' In Yeats' rallying call, and in Vico, Joyce found confirmation of his intuition. Philological synchronicities bolstered his confidence. The Odyssey begins with Ulysses on Calypso's island, Ogygia. Joyce discovered that Ogygia was the name that Plutarch had long ago given to Ireland. Although Joyce had told Vladimir Nabokov in 1937 that basing his Ulysses on Homer's poem was 'a whim' and that his collaboration with Stuart Gilbert in preparing a Homeric correspondence to Ulysses was 'a terrible mistake' (Joyce deleted the Homeric titles of his chapters before Ulysses was published in book form), Homer's presence is very obviously noticeable throughout the novel. Nabokov suggested that a mysterious character who keeps appearing in Ulysses, described only as 'the man in the brown macintosh' and never clearly identified, might be Joyce himself lurking in his own pages. It might just as well be Homer, come to supervise the renovation of his works."

"In the process of association, however, they all become Joycean, as in the beautiful use of Homeric epithets in Joyce's description of the Citizen Cyclops:

The figure seated on a large boulder at the foot of a round tower was that of a broadshouldered deepchested stronglimbed frankeyed redhaired freelyfreckled shaggybearded widemouthed largenosed longheaded deepvoiced barekneed brawnyhanded hairylegged ruddyfaced sinewyarmed hero."

"Joyce's Ulysses is not an interpretation of Homer, neither is it a retelling, even less a pastiche. Dr. Johnson, writing in 1765, argued that 'The Pythagorean scale of numbers was at once discovered to be perfect; but the poems of Homer we yet know not to transcend the common limits of human intelligence, but by remarking, that nation after nation, and century after century, has been able to do little more than transpose his incidents, new-name his characters, and paraphrase his sentiments. The reverence due to writings that have long subsisted arises therefore not from any credulous confidence in the superior wisdom of past ages, or gloomy persuasion of the degeneracy of mankind, but is the consequence of acknowledged and indubitable positions, that what has been longest known has been most considered, and what is most considered is best understood.'

Joyce did other than acknowledge Homer's position: he re-imagined the story of the primordial journey undertaken by every man in every age. His coupling was less between Ulysses and Bloom than between Homer and Joyce himself, less between the creations than between the creators. Other writers made Homer theirs through translation, transposition, projection. Joyce did it by starting again."

[Yordan Arango · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comenta el autor del libro, Alberto Manguel, que en la Atenas clásica, en alguno de sus períodos de tiranía, cierto gobernante instituyó lo que debía ser la única “maratón” de lectura en voz alta de la ciudad. Se celebraba durante las Panateneas, las festividades que celebraban a la diosa Atenea, patrona de la ciudad, y en ellas se debían recitar en su totalidad tanto La Ilíada como La Odisea. “Homero era el único poeta al que se concedía este honor y sus biografías respondían al deseo popular de saber más acerca del famoso autor”, comenta Alberto.

Desde hace algún tiempo he cultivado cierta fascinación por todo aquello que produjo el mundo clásico, incluida su historia; y Homero, como definición y casi punto de partida de dicha época, ocupa un lugar especial en ella. Sí, muchas de nuestras tradiciones, entre ellas la democracia, nuestra lengua, e incluso nuestros conflictos, son un legado del mundo clásico. Pero el aspecto de ese mundo, concerniente al arte y la literatura, me producen una curiosidad que hasta ahora raya con lo freaky.

Últimamente pienso en la metáfora como un indicador de agudeza e inteligencia. La entiendo como una noción que generalmente vincula dos ideas con el fin de explicar, resaltar y develar el sentido de la primera, pero cuya relación no es fácil de encontrar y mucho menos de señalar a otros. El punto con Homero es, y he ahí lo cautivador, cuántas veces no han servido La Ilíada y La Odisea como esas luminarias que develan las aristas y perspectivas de muchos de los dilemas al que nos vemos avocados como humanidad? En algún pasaje del libro, cuenta Manguel la anécdota de un proyecto del Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia en los años 90’s sobre promover la lectura en zonas apartadas del país, por medio del acercamiento de bibliotecas itinerantes a lomo de mula: bolsas llenas de libros que se transportaban por la selva, sabanas y caminos de herradura y que se estacionaban por semanas en parajes impensados. Según el “bibliotecario” en uno de tales parajes, todos los libros prestados fueron devueltos, salvo el caso de un volumen de La Iliada. El motivo para querer quedarse con él fue que “…la historia de Homero reflejaba la suya propia: hablaba de un país desangrado por la guerra en el que unos dioses enloquecidos se mezclan con hombres y mujeres que no sabían exactamente por qué se libraba esa contienda… ni por qué iban a matarlos.

Uno no tiene idea de las muchas repercusiones históricas, en diferentes áreas de pensamiento, corrientes artísticas, formas de gobierno, formas de moral, que ha tenido Homero, hasta que se lee el libro del señor Mangel. Honestamente, la simplicidad de los hechos narrados en los dos libros de Homero no hacen pensar, per se, en las enormes consecuencias que estos tendrían en tiempos venideros. Hace falta un libro como el de Mangel, y he ahí donde reside la potencia de la metáfora, porque lo que Manguel nos ofrece, es un compendio para dummies de las más valiosas aristas del legado Homero. Para mí, la lectura de un libro como el de “El legado de Homero”, y lo digo como alguien que lo hizo al revés, debería hacerse previo al enfrentamiento con los dos poemas homéricos; ayudaría a darle ayor profundidad a los dos libros llamados a ser los primeros textos literarios de nuestra cultura.

[Özlem Güzelharcan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Manguel'in tipik titiz araştırmacılığı ve edebiyat sevgisi sonucunda filozofların, tarihçilerin, edebiyatçıların ekseninde Homeros ve epik anlatısının izdüşümü. Finali Borges ile yapmasına da ayrıca vuruldum.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Manguel's "biography" of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey is a fascinating survey of the influence of these works on subsequent literature (not only the direct line that leads to Vergil, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Joyce, etc., but also some fascinating byways). He includes a biographical investigation of Homer (not as man, but as idea). Once again the breadth of Manguel's literary knowledge and the depth of his understanding impressed me. As a welcome lagniappe, Manguel gave me new insight into a favorite story by Borges. My only quibble is his use of the spelling "Virgil" instead of the correct "Vergil," a concession to popular usage that neither Publius Vergilius Maro nor my Latin teacher, Miss Inman, would have condoned. I recommend the book for anyone who is interested in a better understanding of Western literature, with the caveat that it will make the reader want to revisit Homer's original works.

[Silvio Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a survey of Homer's reception in literate, mostly European cultures from ancient Greece through the present. Manguel alternates between telling about generalized attitudes to the poems during certain time periods and telling about the poems' influence on specific authors. I liked the first mode quite well, but a bit suspicious of the second. (For Virgil, the only one of the writers who I've also read, Manguel's comments seemed to subjective for someone who hadn't read Virgil to depend on and to compressed for someone who had read Virgil to evaluate). Also, the next to last chapter, on the supposed universality of The Iliad's fascination with war, left a bad taste in my mouth. Nevertheless, I found the book good as an introduction to the cultural history of Homer. I would recommend it for others who have a minimal knowledge of it (though a good one of the poems themselves) but not to people who already have in-depth knowledge of it.

[Fatma Burçak · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Homeros, Homeros'tan önce başlar."
Neredeyse bu cümleyle başlıyor kitap. Önce Homeros'un var olup olmadığına sonra da ona atfedilen bu destanların dünya üzerindeki yolculuğuna odaklanıyor. Yani kısaca bu kez kahraman Homeros ve destanlar.
Manguel her bölümde bu iki eser ve Homeros'un tarih, felsefe, dinler ve tabii edebiyattaki etkilerini kapsamlı bir biçimde incelerken okuru da kendisiyle birlikte hem zaman yolculuğuna çıkarıyor hem de edebiyatın aynasını eline tutuşturuyor.
Müthiş bir okuma deneyimi sunan, hızla yapılan büyük bir yol. Her bölümde edebiyatın bir doruğundan diğerine taşınıyorsunuz.
Platon, Vergilius, Dante, Goethe gibi ya da çağlar, dinler, simgeler, diller...
Algan Sezgintüredi çevirisiyle.

[James Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty interesting book but more along the lines of a survey than an in-depty approach to the 2 epic poems. It's more of a history of the perceptions of the poems within the various cultural contexts since the classical age, and the influences on the art and literature of those ages. Most of it's convincing. Some of the influences he explains seem a reach, that on Dante, for instance. I particularly enjoyed the chapter devoted to Homer's influence on Virgil, seriously tempting me, at last, to read The Aeneid. So that's in my future. And the chapter explaining how Iliad can be seen as the story of all wars and all men at war I thought especially fine.

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the years, people have nitpicked over every aspect of the Homeric epics, they've found more meaning than is actually there, and less, they've exalted it beyond all reason and vilified it for poor reasons. Others have entered into a dialogue with it, remaking it and using it as the inspiration for fresh works of their own. Manguel ably guides us through the various strands of western philosophy, scholarship and literature.

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is interesting enough and I appreciate the work it took and how it would be useful for certain people, but I have not read or avidly studied Homer’s work so it’s not something I would pick up again

[Ingrid · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit all over the place-- Manguel is trying to be extremely comprehensive in his exploration of Homer as both a historic figure and literary fountainhead, and the result is an interesting though unfocused work that has a tendency to get caught up in rather tangential asides.

[Todd Eckman · Rating 2 out of 5]

WAY over my head!

[Marsha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fairly interesting. Not great. It was fun to remember the books, though, and dig a little deeper.

[Peter Nowakowski]

Read it as a book on tape on a solo trip to CT to see Mom & Dad

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Manguel's 'biography' of the two Homeric epics is a comprehensive study of the textual, intellectual, literary, social, religious and philosophical 'lives of both the poems and their genius, Homer (whoever or whatever that may be). An erudite text this book reminds the reader that if one is to consider these two poems as the most important imaginative fictions created in the classical era, he or she must also acknowledge that they have continued to have an impact on us today. Both 'The Iliad' and 'The Odyssey', including their narratives, their characters, their language and their underpinning themes, still communicate with people in ways that perhaps were never conceived when first composed, first uttered millennia ago. Manguel has made a strong case for the Homeric canon to be the seminal texts for much of European civilisation's history, and whilst they may have had moments of obscurity and of inaccessibility the ideas, the poetry, the reflections on both humanity and deities in these works will never lose their validity. They can, and do, mean all things to all men (and women).

Manguel's approach to subject is reasonably conventional, insofar as he follows a chronological narrative with significant thematic issues included in his text as required. There is some degree of flexibility in his discussion of who says or did what, when, however the reader starts reading (unlike either epic) ab ovo. The genesis of the Homeric corpus and the composer's own mythic nature is examined in early chapters, then as the book progresses 'The Iliad' and 'The Odyssey' are slowly brought through time up to the current day. Along the way the reader meets important figures who have connected with the Homeric texts, or perhaps responded against them, or even taken these poems as the basis for their own creative efforts, their own world view. Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Pope, Goethe, Nietzsche, Freud are just some of the eminent voices who have spoken on or to the Homeric literature and Mangual certainly allows the reader to see the nature of these relationships including their impact on the wider world.

It must be noted at this point that this book tracks (for the most part) the history of the Homeric epics in Europe, with some references to the Americas, the Middle East, India and China. There is virtually zero consideration of how these poems have impacted in other societies, other cultures, other historical periods. It must also be noted that Manguel's study is fixated with the words from the texts as well as the associated ideas of both poems and 'author'. These are commendable foci for the most part, however it is somewhat surprising that the author doesn't do more with the most recent visual representations of the epics, i.e. film. There is a large body of films that have been adapted from or inspired by Hollywood and other cinemas, yet these are left without nary a mention. Mangual has more than adequately written of 'The Iliad' and 'The Odyssey' as literary artefacts in the context of writers, of thinkers, of believers, of historians. However in an era when popular culture uses film as one of its most important modes of creation and constructing meaning to not address Homer's works in teh film age is rather disappointing.

The author has made a significant attempt at mapping and annotating much of his discussion of the Homeric epics, and one would struggle to justify anything but praise for such serious scholarship. However the relative complex prose used by Manguel at times can confuse or mystify the reader. This is not necessarily his fault per se, however it does lead to the potential for some disengagement from his text. This is not a dry or difficult book for those who have some inkling of what the two poems and the 'author' are about so to speak. Yet there is a need for a higher level of academic comprehension than a mere historical study of Homer and the two epics would require. Mangual writes about the contest of ideas, of language, the complicated interrelationship between the corpus and people who have tried to come to grips with Homer.

So who will benefit from reading 'Homer's Iliad and Odyssey'? Classicists and students of literary history will undoubtedly find something to praise, something to ponder through reading Manguel's book. I suspect many who read this book will also start reading the epics, perhaps for the first time, perhaps for a second, third or whatever time. Is it a good book, one that will bring illumination, information and entertainment to its readers? To some extent yes, to some extent no. Is this reviewer glad that he read it? Most certainly.

This may not be the most authoritative or academically significant study of Homer, 'The Iliad' and 'The Odyssey'. However it is relatively accessible and written in such a way that having completed the study the reader will know much more about the subject than they probably did beforehand.

[Eduardo Lima Águila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es sorprendente que, en una lengua que ya no sabemos cómo pronunciar, un poeta o varios poetas cuyos rostros y caracteres no podemos concebir, que vinieron en una sociedad acerca de cuyas costumbres y creencias no tenemos sino una vaga idea, describan nuestras vidas de hoy con sus alegrías secretas y sus pecados ocultos.

Todos los libros que he leído de Alberto Manguel los he disfrutado mucho y es que tiene una forma tan borgeana de transmitir el gusto por los libros, la lectura y la literatura (que no son lo mismo) que uno se queda leyéndolo como si escuchara a un profesor cuya clase es muy amena. Sí, es un señor muy señor de canon, pero tampoco espero lecturas de su parte de otro tipo.
Este libro lo tomé por mi relectura de la obra de Homero (y supongo que vendrán otros más). La traducción literal de su título en inglés es La Ilíada y la Odisea de Homero, pero creo que El legado de Homero es más certero; en ningún lado vi que aparezca ese subtítulo de “Cómo estamos perdiendo el sentido de las palabras” que quien lo subió a Goodreads parece haber agregado y que no tiene sentido con el texto. Como decía el título en español es más acertado porque justo de lo que Manguel habla no es de las obras homéricas en sí, sino de sus lecturas, recepciones, apropiaciones que han tenido a lo largo del tiempo, o sea el legado que Homero tiene.
Cada capítulo es cortito y bastante disfrutable. Me parece que falla en lo de “El eterno femenino”, donde su señoritud le impide hacer una lectura en clave de género, que además se nota en que las autoras mujeres están muy ausentes en su corpus, pero como desde el inicio dije es un señor muy señor canon.
Mi parte favorita es quizás, y quizás por mi contexto mexicano de 2025 y la lectura reciente de Antígona González de Sara Uribe, cuando cuenta que un programa gubernamental colombiano de difusión de la lectura, llevaba libros prestados a las comunidades y en una ocasión, una devolvió todos excepto un ejemplar de la Ilíada, le permitieron a la comunidad quedárselo y al preguntar por qué:

nos explicaron que la historia de Homero reflejaba la suya propia: hablaba de un país desgarrado por la guerra en el que unos dioses enloquecidos se mezclaban con hombres y mujeres que no sabían exactamente por qué se libraba esa contienda, ni cuándo podrían ser felices, ni por qué iban a matarlos.

Con riesgo a sonar cliché, las grandes obras literarias son aquellas que justo pueden traspasar ese tipo de barreras de tiempo, espacio y cultura para conectar con la experiencia humana profunda y compartida de la vida. Este libro al final abre la ventana para que uno se asome a ese aspecto de la obra de Homero.

[María Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Parto confesando que no he leído la Ilíada ni la Odisea y fuera del hecho de que ambos relatos nacieron de una tradición oral, sabía muy poco de la influencia concreta de Homero en la historia de la literatura y la religión. Me imagino que para un académico este libro se queda corto, pero para una mortal como yo es un disfrute absoluto. Me sentía en una clase con el mejor de los maestros. Por un lado, me parece que el estilo de escritura de Manguel es muy bello. Por otro, me gustó la selección de temas y referencias que hizo para contar todas las dimensiones de Homero: ¿existió o no? ¿Habría sido hombre o mujer? ¿Cómo lo retomaron los romanos para justificar el nacimiento del imperio? ¿De qué le sirvió al catolicismo y al islam? ¿Y los autores? Dante, Virgilio, Nietszche, Goethe, Joyce, todos están ahí y cada uno lo retoma a su manera. Además de esto, me conmovió mucho cómo transmite la universalidad de los temas de ambos relatos, cómo deja ver que las tristezas y pasiones de los hombres son infinitas. Subrayé mucho en el libro, pero quizá esta fue una de mis líneas favoritas: “Es sorprendente que, en una lengua que ya no sabemos cómo pronunciar, un poeta o varios poetas cuyos rostros y caracteres no podemos concebir, que vivieron en una sociedad acerca de cuyas costumbres y creencias no tenemos sino una vaga idea, describan nuestras vidas de hoy con sus alegrías secretas y sus pecados ocultos”.

[Jim Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third book in the series called Books that Shook the World. The other’s I’ve read include the ones about Marx’s Capital (by Wheen) and Plato’s Republic (by Blackburn).

This one’s by that sensitive and humane reader, Alberto Manuel, author of A History of Reading (1997). The book begins with his take on both the Iliad and the Odyssey followed by how other readers (many of whom are poets) have read and utilized or translated these classics of Western civilization.

Here are two quotes from his book that give a flavour of his approach and his erudition:
(P. 164:) “Even though the protagonists of both the Iliad and the Odyssey are men, at the core of each poem are extraordinary women.”

(P. 236): “How astonishing that, in a language we no longer know precisely how to pronounce, a poet or various poets whose faces and characters we cannot conceive, who lived in a society of whose customs and beliefs we have but a very vague idea, described for us our own lives today, with every secret happiness and every hidden sin.”

The book also includes an excellent set of notes, bibliography and even an index of citations from Homer’s epic poems. Well recommended.

[Wieland Wyntin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alberto Manguel stelt nooit teleur en slaagt erin op begeesterde wijze in deze bespreking van het naleven van de Ilias en Odyssee door verschillende eeuwen heen de lezer op sleeptouw te nemen. Zijn eruditie is indrukwekkend en zijn bronnenkeuze is uitstekend. Liefhebbers van de klassieke oudheid, cultuur-of literatuurgeschiedenis zouden zich verplicht moeten voelen dit boek in hun bezit te hebben.