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The Stories of the Greeks
The one-volume compilation of the author's 3 previously published books on the gods, heroes, and wars of ancient Greece
405 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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About the author
Rex Warner
84 books24 followersRex Warner was an English classicist, writer and translator. He is now probably best remembered for The Aerodrome (1941), an allegorical novel whose young hero is faced with the disintegration of his certainties about his loved ones and with a choice between the earthy, animalistic life of his home village and the pure, efficient, emotionally detached life of an airman.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 29, 2022
No one has reviewed this book for like ten years so I'll just take the space to have a bit of a ramble about my thoughts on it.
It's weird that we look at Greek myths as fundamental intertexts for the literature which followed, because they're really mostly about a bunch of characters with no agency who are entirely at the mercy of powers beyond their understanding. And that obviously makes sense given the context in which they were being told (and even to a certain extent nowadays, where it seems like the world might be destroyed at any moment by one or two senile world leaders without any input from us normal people). But I guess what really struck me about these stories, which are interesting if a bit repetitive, is how the modern idea of "a character must be empowered/demonstrate agency/responsibility to be well written" is just that, a modern idea. Because it turns out that some of the most iconic characters in all of literature were little more than marionnettes, and people still remember them two thousand years later.
It's weird that we look at Greek myths as fundamental intertexts for the literature which followed, because they're really mostly about a bunch of characters with no agency who are entirely at the mercy of powers beyond their understanding. And that obviously makes sense given the context in which they were being told (and even to a certain extent nowadays, where it seems like the world might be destroyed at any moment by one or two senile world leaders without any input from us normal people). But I guess what really struck me about these stories, which are interesting if a bit repetitive, is how the modern idea of "a character must be empowered/demonstrate agency/responsibility to be well written" is just that, a modern idea. Because it turns out that some of the most iconic characters in all of literature were little more than marionnettes, and people still remember them two thousand years later.
October 12, 2008
I needed to refresh my memory of the Pandora myth for a project of my own — then just got sucked into reading this entire book because Rex Warner does such an excellent job of retelling the Greek myths in modern English.
Warner changes nothing about the originals, yet still somehow makes the stories live, a technique that comes to fruition with his collection of all of the stories related to the Trojan War in a big section of the book. This was probably the first time I'd enjoyed reading it just as literature.
Warner's presentation makes the book something like a profile of a culture instead of just a string of stories.
Naturally the Pandora myth was the one story that didn't appear in this volume. Just my luck.
Warner changes nothing about the originals, yet still somehow makes the stories live, a technique that comes to fruition with his collection of all of the stories related to the Trojan War in a big section of the book. This was probably the first time I'd enjoyed reading it just as literature.
Warner's presentation makes the book something like a profile of a culture instead of just a string of stories.
Naturally the Pandora myth was the one story that didn't appear in this volume. Just my luck.
August 14, 2011
I picked up this book the day before leaving on a vacation to Athens and some of the Greek islands. It was an amazing experience to read about the history of the Greek gods in the shadow of the Acropolis, and to read about Zeus' youth on Naxos before taking the ferry from Ios to Naxos on our trip.
The stories themselves were written in a current prose that made it into a quick and easy read. I enjoyed the fact that it wasn't a challenge to understand the meaning of each word or sentence, and could instead let my imagination run with the imagery of the story.
I'd highly recommend this version of Greek stories to get an understanding of all of the players and the interaction between the myths. Good read.
The stories themselves were written in a current prose that made it into a quick and easy read. I enjoyed the fact that it wasn't a challenge to understand the meaning of each word or sentence, and could instead let my imagination run with the imagery of the story.
I'd highly recommend this version of Greek stories to get an understanding of all of the players and the interaction between the myths. Good read.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews