The Oxford Critical Guide to Homer's Iliad

by Jonathan L. Ready

The Oxford Critical Guide to Homer's Iliad investigates each of the Iliad's twenty-four books, proceeding in order from book 1 to book 24 and devoting one chapter to each one. Contributors summarize the plot of a book and then explore its themes and poetics, providing both close readings of individual passages and synthetic reviews of current scholarship. This format allows readers to study the poem in the same manner in which they read book by book. Differing from other introductions to the Iliad that comprise chapters on specific topics and themes, the volume offers accessible and actionable discussions of concepts pertinent to each book of the poem. Differing from other introductory volumes that are written by a single author, this volume allows for a polyphony of critical voices and showcases the diversity of approaches to the Iliad. Finally, differing from commentaries keyed to the Greek text, this volume is completely accessible to those who do not read Homeric Greek. These features make the volume an essential resource for those studying the Iliad in translation and in the original Greek, for those in classical studies and in other disciplines, and for teachers and students, both those at the undergraduate level and those at the graduate level.

328 pages, Hardcover

Published September 13, 2024

Reviews

[Huilén · Rating 1 out of 5]

It isn't what i was expecting. I wanted to understand the illiad and its background, but this book only explains the plot and an inspid poetics analysis of each chapter/book of the Illiad. It's like reading a summary of the story, which was not what i was looking for. I expected to find an explanation of the Iliad idea of virtue, of the hero, of their cosmology, of their mythology, etc.

The book summary one can find in wikipedia is richer than the one of this book.