The Measure of Homer: The Ancient Reception of the Iliad and the Odyssey

Description

Homer was the greatest and most influential Greek poet. In this book, Richard Hunter explores central themes in the poems' reception in antiquity, paying particular attention to Homer's importance in shaping ancient culture. Subjects include the geographical and educational breadth of Homeric reception, the literary and theological influence of Homer's depiction of the gods, Homeric poetry and sympotic culture, scholarly and rhetorical approaches to Homer, Homer in the satires of Plutarch and Lucian, and how Homer shaped ideas about the power of music and song. This is a major and innovative contribution to the study of the dominant literary force in Greek culture and of the Greek literary engagement with the past. Through the study of their influence and reception, this book also sheds rich light on the Homeric poems themselves. All Greek and Latin are translated.

Richard Hunter is Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Cambridge, where he has taught since 1978, and a Fellow of Trinity College. He has taught at several American universities, including Princeton University and the University of Virginia, and lectures in the United States and Europe regularly. He has published extensively in the fields of Greek and Latin literature; his most recent books include Critical Moments in Classical Literature (Cambridge, 2009), (with Donald Russell) Plutarch: How to Study Poetry (Cambridge, 2011), Plato and the Traditions of Ancient Literature: The Silent Stream (Cambridge, 2012), Hesiodic Voices (Cambridge, 2014) and Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica Book IV (Cambridge, 2015). Many of his essays have been collected in the two-volume On Coming After: Studies in Post-Classical Greek Literature and its Reception (2008). He has edited the Journal of Hellenic Studies and is on the editorial board of Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics, Cambridge Classical Studies and several European journals. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, holds honorary degrees from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the University of Ioannina, and is a Corresponding Fellow of the Academy of Athens and an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

'... endlessly interesting book ... the importance of [Hunter]'s elegant elucidation of the historical 'reception' of Homer is that it casts instructive light on the ancient world.' Classics For All 'H. convincingly demonstrates how greatly modern interpretations of perennially popular Homeric scenes (such as Odysseus among the Sirens or Achilles and his lyre) can be enriched by engaging with ancient readers as diverse as Horace, Dio Chrysostom, Clement of Alexandria and Sextus Empiricus along the way.' Anna Stelow, Religious Studies Review