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Homer: A Collection of Critical Essays
Collection of Critical Essays Edited by George Steiner and Robert Fagles, Prentice Hall Inc., 1965, GOOD+. This is a Collectible Paperback Text book. The book is tight and square with clean pages. The book is bumped at all corners and along all edges and shows shelf wear. There is a small crease at the bottom right front corner. A Nice Reading Copy! The aim of this series is to present the best in contemporary critical opinion on major authors, providing a twentieth century perspective on their changing status in an era of profound revaluation, (Maynard Mark, Series Editor, Yale University).
- GenresEssays
178 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
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About the author
George Steiner
188 books569 followersSee also: George A. Steiner, author on Management and Planning.
Dr. Francis George Steiner was an essayist, novelist, philosopher, literary critic, and educator. He wrote for The New Yorker for over thirty years, contributing over two hundred reviews. Among his many awards, he received The Truman Capote Lifetime Achievement Award from Stanford University 1998. He lived in Cambridge, England, with his wife, historian Zara Shakow Steiner.
In 1950 he earned an M.A. from Harvard University, where he won the Bell Prize in American Literature, and received his Ph.D. from Oxford University (Balliol College) on a Rhodes Scholarship in 1955. He was then a scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, for two years. He became a founding fellow of Churchill College at the University of Cambridge in 1961, and has been an Extraordinary Fellow there since 1969. Additionally, Steiner accepted the post of Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Geneva in 1974, which he held for 20 years, teaching in four languages. He became Professor Emeritus at Geneva University on his retirement in 1994, and an Honorary Fellow at Balliol College at Oxford University in 1995. He later held the positions of the first Lord Weidenfeld Professor of Comparative Literature and Fellow of St. Anne's College at Oxford University from 1994 to 1995, and Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University from 2001 to 2002.
Dr. Francis George Steiner was an essayist, novelist, philosopher, literary critic, and educator. He wrote for The New Yorker for over thirty years, contributing over two hundred reviews. Among his many awards, he received The Truman Capote Lifetime Achievement Award from Stanford University 1998. He lived in Cambridge, England, with his wife, historian Zara Shakow Steiner.
In 1950 he earned an M.A. from Harvard University, where he won the Bell Prize in American Literature, and received his Ph.D. from Oxford University (Balliol College) on a Rhodes Scholarship in 1955. He was then a scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, for two years. He became a founding fellow of Churchill College at the University of Cambridge in 1961, and has been an Extraordinary Fellow there since 1969. Additionally, Steiner accepted the post of Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Geneva in 1974, which he held for 20 years, teaching in four languages. He became Professor Emeritus at Geneva University on his retirement in 1994, and an Honorary Fellow at Balliol College at Oxford University in 1995. He later held the positions of the first Lord Weidenfeld Professor of Comparative Literature and Fellow of St. Anne's College at Oxford University from 1994 to 1995, and Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University from 2001 to 2002.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 28, 2025
“With quick interest I summoned up a whole population of invented persons. Of the fiction writers Balzac, perhaps, might supply him? No. Flaubert? No. Dostoevsky or Tolstoy then? Their people are exciting, wonderfl, but not complete. Shakespeare surely. But no, again. The footlights, the proscenium arch, the fatal curtain are all there to present to us not complete, all-round beings, but only three hours of passionate conflict. I came to rest on Goethe.
"What abont Faust?" I said. And then, as a second shot, "Or Hamlet?*
"Faust!" said Joyce. "Far from being a complete man, he isn't a man at all. Is he an old man or a yonng man? Where are his home and his family? We don’t know. And he can't be complete because he's never alone. Mephistopheles is always hanging round him at his side or heels. We see a lot of him, that's all.
It was easy to see the answer in Joyce's mind to his own question. "Your complete man in literature is, I suppose, Ulysses?"
“Yes," said Joyce. "No-age Faust isn't a man. But you mentioned Hamlet. Hamlet is a human being, but he is a son only. Ulysses is son to Laertes, but he is father to Telemachus, husband to Penelope, lover of Calypso, companion in arms of the Greek warriors around Troy, and King of Ithaca. He was subjected to many trials, but with wisdom and courage came through them all. Don't forget that he was a war dodger who tried to evade military service by simulating madness. He might never have taken up arms and gone to Troy, but the Greek re- cruiting sergeant was too clever for him and, while he was ploughing the sands, placed young Telemachus in front of his plough. But once at the war the conscientious objector became a jusqu auboutist. When the others wanted to abandon the siege he insisted on staying till Troy should fall.
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"What abont Faust?" I said. And then, as a second shot, "Or Hamlet?*
"Faust!" said Joyce. "Far from being a complete man, he isn't a man at all. Is he an old man or a yonng man? Where are his home and his family? We don’t know. And he can't be complete because he's never alone. Mephistopheles is always hanging round him at his side or heels. We see a lot of him, that's all.
It was easy to see the answer in Joyce's mind to his own question. "Your complete man in literature is, I suppose, Ulysses?"
“Yes," said Joyce. "No-age Faust isn't a man. But you mentioned Hamlet. Hamlet is a human being, but he is a son only. Ulysses is son to Laertes, but he is father to Telemachus, husband to Penelope, lover of Calypso, companion in arms of the Greek warriors around Troy, and King of Ithaca. He was subjected to many trials, but with wisdom and courage came through them all. Don't forget that he was a war dodger who tried to evade military service by simulating madness. He might never have taken up arms and gone to Troy, but the Greek re- cruiting sergeant was too clever for him and, while he was ploughing the sands, placed young Telemachus in front of his plough. But once at the war the conscientious objector became a jusqu auboutist. When the others wanted to abandon the siege he insisted on staying till Troy should fall.
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July 26, 2018
The introduction tells us this is a "a book based entirely on the principle of delight", and it delivers in those terms. These are not esoteric essays by Homerists. Instead, we get insights from people such as Pound, Tolstoy, Lukacs, Kafka, Fitzgerald, and D. H. Lawrence. There is Homer-inspired poetry from Auden, Cecil Day-Lewis, etc.
One thing that's missing is some editorial notes to point out factual errors from some of the older essays. Powys for example suggests 400 years between the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey, a highly unlikely figure.
The end result is a bit uneven, but as a whole successful.
One thing that's missing is some editorial notes to point out factual errors from some of the older essays. Powys for example suggests 400 years between the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey, a highly unlikely figure.
The end result is a bit uneven, but as a whole successful.
February 6, 2021
The introduction by Steiner ("Homer and the Scholars") and a couple other essays (Dimock and W.B. Stanford) were very good. The excerpt from Whitman was worthwhile. The rest was very mediocre.
January 31, 2018
A few duds, but lots of good material for teaching and starting places for inquiry.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews