Inventing Homer: The Early Reception of Epic

Description

How was the poet Homer imagined by ancient Greeks? This book looks at stories circulating between the sixth and fourth centuries BC about his birth, name and origin, blindness and his relationship to other poets and his descendants. The work studies the ancient reception of the Homeric poems, and looks at it in relation to modern representations of Homer, ancient and modern conceptions of authorship, and the "Homeric Question".

Barbara Graziosi is currently Lecturer in Greek at the University of Reading. She was educated in Trieste, Oxford and Cambridge and in 1999-2000 held a Junior Research Fellowship at New College, Oxford. Her doctoral thesis, on which the present book is based, has been shortlisted for the Hellenic Foundation's Annual Prize for the best doctoral thesis.

'One can only wish that Graziosi's approach will be taken up by equally able scholars. She has asked the right questions.' Andreas Hartmann, Katholische Universitat Eichstatt-Ingolstadt 'A detailed, stimulating and fresh examination of the evidence for receptions of epic.' Andrew Ford, JHS 'This well documented book lucidly demonstrates that it is well worth being interested in what motivated and shaped Homeric biography.' Stephen Halliwell, Greece and Rome