Die britische Archäologin und Religionswissenschaftlerin Jane E. Harrison (1850-1928) gehörte zur ersten Generation von Forschern, die Mythen und Rituale wissenschaftlich untersuchten. Sie erkannte die Bedeutung von Ritualen für die Bilder der griechischen Kunst und führte damit eine anthropologische Sichtweise in die archäologische Forschung ein. Im vorliegenden Band übernimmt sie die These von Karl Otfried Müller, dass Homer und die Künstler, die Szenen aus Ilias und Odyssee schufen, auf eine gemeinsame Quelle lokaler Tradition zurückgreifen, die Bilder also keineswegs nur Illustrationen zum Text sind, sondern eine Eigenständigkeit besitzen. Sie stellt die Texte und Bilder den märchenhaften Volkserzählungen der Odyssee (Zyklopen, Laestrygonen, Kirke, Abstieg in den Hades, Sirenen, Skylla und Charybdis) gegenüber, untersucht ihr Verhältnis zueinander und interpretiert die Sagenfiguren. Nachdruck der Originalausgabe aus dem Jahr 1882.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1882.

Excerpt from Myths of the Odyssey in Art and Literature F OR English readers my book is in intention some what novel; it may be well therefore at the outset clearly to define its purport. By two voices the tales of Homer have been told us: to one of these we too often neglect to listen. Because the myths of Homer himself are told in words that are matchless, is it well that the story which art has left us should remain unread? The vase -painter and the gem engraver are indeed humbler artists than the great epic poet; sometimes they are mere craftsmen, and their work little beyond the rudest symbolic word painting; but they are Greeks, and they may help us to understand some what better the spirit of their mighty kinsman. We who are so far removed, by time, by place, by every condition of modern life, must refuse no aid whereby we may seek to draw the nearer: our eyes must learn to see as well as our ears to hearken. We read enough of the writings of scholiast and grammarian, who have striven in all ages to elucidate the text of Homer. Thereby we acquire, it is true. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

A BRILLIANT AND BEGUILING REIMAGINING OF ONE OF OUR GREATEST MYTHS BY A GIFTED YOUNG WRITER Zachary Mason's brilliant and beguiling debut novel, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, reimagines Homer's classic story of the hero Odysseus and his long journey home after the fall of Troy. With brilliant prose, terrific imagination, and dazzling literary skill, Mason creates alternative episodes, fragments, and revisions of Homer's original that taken together open up this classic Greek myth to endless reverberating interpretations. The Lost Books of the Odyssey is punctuated with great wit, beauty, and playfulness; it is a daring literary page-turner that marks the emergence of an extraordinary new talent.

Since their composition almost 3,000 years ago the Homeric epics have lost none of their power to grip audiences and fire the imagination: with their stories of life and death, love and loss, war and peace they continue to speak to us at the deepest level about who we are across the span of generations. That being said, the world of Homer is in many ways distant from that in which we live today, with fundamental differences not only in language, social order, and religion, but in basic assumptions about the world and human nature. This volume offers a detailed yet accessible introduction to ancient Greek culture through the lens of Book One of the Odyssey, covering all of these aspects and more in a comprehensive Introduction designed to orient students in their studies of Greek literature and history. The full Greek text is included alongside a facing English translation which aims to reproduce as far as feasible the word order and sound play of the Greek original and is supplemented by a Glossary of Technical Terms and a full vocabulary keyed to the specific ways that words are used in Odyssey I. At the heart of the volume is a full-length line-by-line commentary, the first in English since the 1980s and updated to bring the latest scholarship to bear on the text: focusing on philological and linguistic issues, its close engagement with the original Greek yields insights that will be of use to scholars and advanced students as well as to those coming to the text for the first time.

A Cyclops is popularly assumed to be nothing more than a flesh-eating, one-eyed monster. In an accessible, stylish, and academically authoritative investigation, this book seeks to demonstrate that there is far more to it than that - quite apart from the fact that in myths the Cyclopes are not always one-eyed! This book provides a detailed, innovative, and richly illustrated study of the myths relating to the Cyclopes from classical antiquity until the present day. The first part is organised thematically: after discussing various competing scholarly approaches to the myths, the authors analyse ancient accounts and images of the Cyclopes in relation to landscape, physique (especially eyes, monstrosity, and hairiness), lifestyle, gods, names, love, and song. While the man-eating Cyclops Polyphemus, famous already in the Odyssey, plays a major part, so also do the Cyclopes who did monumental building work, as well as those who toiled as blacksmiths. The second part of the book concentrates on the post-classical reception of the myths, including medieval allegory, Renaissance grottoes, poetry, drama, the visual arts, contemporary painting and sculpture, film, and even a circus performance. This book aims to explore not just the perennial appeal of the Cyclopes as fearsome monsters, but the depth and subtlety of their mythology which raises complex issues of thought and emotion.