Selected by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title From Odysseus to Aeneas, from Beowulf to King Arthur, from the Mahâbhârata to the Ossetian "Nart" tales, epic heroes and their stories have symbolized the power of the human imagination. Drawing on diverse disciplines including classics, anthropology, psychology, and literary studies, this product of twenty years' scholarship provides a detailed typology of the hero in Western myth: birth, parentage, familial ties, sexuality, character, deeds, death, and afterlife. Dean A. Miller examines the place of the hero in the physical world (wilderness, castle, prison cell) and in society (among monarchs, fools, shamans, rivals, and gods). He looks at the hero in battle and quest; at his political status; and at his relationship to established religion. The book spans Western epic traditions, including Greek, Roman, Nordic, and Celtic, as well as the Indian and Persian legacies. A large section of the book also examines the figures who modify or accompany the hero: partners, helpers (animals and sometimes monsters), foes, foils, and even antitypes. The Epic Hero provides a comprehensive and provocative guide to epic heroes, and to the richly imaginative tales they inhabit.

The Knight in the Panther Skin, Book One: Avtandil's QuestStorms gather on the far reaches of the Arabian frontier. The King grows old, and the throne lacks an heir. To avert disaster, he appoints his only daughter as regent, but just days after her coronation, a Black Knight appears from edges of the realm.He wears the skin of a panther and rides a midnight steed. When the King and his foster son Avtandil give challenge, the stranger butchers countless soldiers before vanishing before their eyes. Despite searching the empire, no one can find a trace of him or where he went. It's as if the man never existed.To learn the secret of the Knight in the Panther Skin, Avtandil is given an impossible quest. He must risk all he has ever loved and undertake a perilous journey to lands no Arabian has ever seen. Alone and lost to himself, he has no choice but to scour the edges of the world in search of his quarry. But first, he must overcome himself.If he succeeds, he will return home to the heart of his beloved. Yet, failure will bring all he has ever loved to ruin. His home will become no more than a wasteland of the hopes and dreams he once had. The problem is, no one knows how to find the Black Knight, or if he is a man or a monster?

This classic medieval romance of chivalry by an outstanding figure in a brilliant period of Georgian literature has affinities with both the Persian tradition and that of the West.

"This book teases out hitherto unrecognised Eastern aspects in and influences on C. S. Lewis' Narnia Chronicles. These include storylines, plots, themes, imagery and even cities and landscapes in the East, as well as the 'Persian' style of illustrations by Pauline Baynes. Although never having ventured East himself, Lewis wrote that 'I am the product of endless books,' and in recognising Eastern references - many only subconsciously intended by Lewis - it is possible to enter the rich world of books that Lewis lived and breathed all his life. And, perhaps less obviously, overhear the conversations he had with his fellow Inklings or that he might have overheard himself in an Oxford pub. Religious messages other than the obvious Christian find their way into Narnia, but so too does the Arabian Nights and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as well as the other great Persian poets; great travellers from Herodotus and Marco Polo to T. E. Lawrence and Robert Byron are there, but so too are the great fictional travellers, Baron Munchausen, Gulliver, and Sindbad; themes borrowed from the great epics, from the Odyssey and Aeneid to the Kalevala and the Knight in the Panther's Skin, can also be found. Delve deeper and Christianity is there along with paganism, but so too are Zoroastrian, Manichaean and even Islamic messages. Ultimately they are a reflection of the complex intellectual world that Lewis inhabited, and of the wider social and intellectual climate of Oxford in the first half of the twentieth century"

"The introductory text of this book traces Georgia's long cultural history from its archaeological beginnings to the present. Twenty-three essays by scholars from all over the world give a vivid portrayal of Georgia's heritage in history, literature and manuscript production, archaeology and art throughout prehistoric, classical and Christian periods up to the Early Modern Era. Over 150 objects are presented and their range is vast: Neolithic ceramics, intricately worked Bronze and Iron Age gold and silver, Greek and Roman jewellery, richly illuminated manuscripts, medieval paintings, cloisonne enamel and gold repousse work, and embroidery are illustrated."--Jacket.

This epic by the Georgian poet Rust'haveli has been the book of a nation for 700 years. It was expected that the text, based on a Persian original and reflecting Georgia's position as a crossroads between east and west, would be memorized by all female members of the country's aristocracy.