The Poetry of Homer

Edited with an Introduction by Bruce Heiden, New Edition

S. E. Bassett - Edited by Bruce Heiden - Foreword by Greg Nagy

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scholarship, Bassett was invited to deliver the Sather Classical Lecture at Berkeley, but he died with the manuscript unpublished.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.

Lexington Books

Pages: 306 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-0-7391-0695-2 • Hardback • July 2003 • $139.00 • (£107.00)

978-0-7391-0696-9 • Paperback • June 2003 • $51.99 • (£40.00)

Series: Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches

Subjects: Drama / Ancient, Classical

The Poetry of Homer

Edited with an Introduction by Bruce Heiden, New Edition

Hardback

Paperback

Summary

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scholarship, Bassett was invited to deliver the Sather Classical Lecture at Berkeley, but he died with the manuscript unpublished.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.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 306 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-0-7391-0695-2 • Hardback • July 2003 • $139.00 • (£107.00)

978-0-7391-0696-9 • Paperback • June 2003 • $51.99 • (£40.00)

Series: Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches

Subjects: Drama / Ancient, Classical

Author

Samuel 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.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Preface
Chapter 2 Editor's Introduction
Chapter 3 An Important Homeric Problem and its Postulates
Chapter 4 The Epic Illusion
Chapter 5 The Epic Illusion (Continued)
Chapter 6 The Breaking of the Epic Illusion
Chapter 7 The Poet and His Audience
Chapter 8 The Poet as Singer
Chapter 9 Homer the Poetic Demiurge
Chapter 10 The Poet as Realist and as Idealist