Elton T. E. Barker - Homer: a Beginners Guide

Interesting, thoughtful, and well written. The book covers an admirably wide range of issues with clarity and assurance.

Barbara Graziosi, Professor of Classics, Durham University, UK

Barker and Christensen have written the best introduction I know to the Homeric poems. They explain the main themes, scenes, and characters in clear, jargon-free language that is a pleasure to read, whether for those new to Homer or advanced students.

Pura Nieto, Senior Lecturer in Classics, Brown University, USA

ONEWORLD BEGINNERS GUIDES combine an original, inventive, and engaging approach with expert analysis on subjects ranging from art and history to religion and politics, and everything in between. Innovative and affordable, books in the series are perfect for anyone curious about the way the world works and the big ideas of our time.

aesthetics

africa

american politics

anarchism

animal behaviour

anthropology

anti-capitalism

aquinas

art

artificial intelligence

the bahai faith

the beat generation

the bible

biodiversity

bioterror & biowarfare

the brain

british politics

the Buddha

cancer

censorship

christianity

civil liberties

classical music

climate change

cloning

cold war

conservation

crimes against humanity

criminal psychology

critical thinking

daoism

democracy

descartes

dewey

dyslexia

energy

the enlightenment

engineering

epistemology

european union

evolution

evolutionary psychology

existentialism

fair trade

feminism

forensic science

french literature

french revolution

genetics

global terrorism

hinduism

history of science

homer

humanism

huxley

iran

islamic philosophy

islamic veil

journalism

judaism

lacan

life in the universe

literary theory

machiavelli

mafia & organized crime

magic

marx

medieval philosophy

middle east

modern slavery

NATO

nietzsche

the northern ireland conflict

nutrition

oil

opera

the palestineisraeli conflict

particle physics

paul

philosophy

philosophy of mind

philosophy of religion

philosophy of science

planet earth

postmodernism

psychology

quantum physics

the quran

racism

reductionism

religion

renaissance art

shakespeare

the small arms trade

sufism

the torah

united nations

volcanoes

A Oneworld Book

Published by Oneworld Publications 2013

Copyright Barker and Christensen 2013

The moral right of Barker and Christensen to be identified as the Authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved
Copyright under Berne Convention
A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78074-229-8
ISBN (ebook) 978-1-78074-238-0

Typeset by Cenveo, India
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
TJ International Ltd, Cornwall

Oneworld Publications
10 Bloomsbury Street
London WC1B 3SR
UK

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There is no greater privilege for us than the chance to write a Beginners Guide on Homer for a general audience. We would like to thank all the team at Oneworld Publications for giving us the opportunity, Mike Harpley, our series editor, who guided us through the edit of this little book on big issues, and Barbara Graziosi, from whose Homeric wisdom and skill we have learned much. Many other scholars have informed our understanding of Homer and his poems. We have tried to give some indication of our formative influences in Further Reading at the end of the book. But for the record we would like to acknowledge Erwin Cook, Simon Goldhill, Bruce Heiden, and Lenny Muellner, whose lectures brought Homer alive for us and whose ideas may be found throughout this book. We thank too our students, both past and present, whose undiminished curiosity has kept Homer vibrant year after year. We are also indebted to the friends and colleagues who read through earlier drafts of the manuscript and spared us many blushes: Timothy Gerolami, Kristina Meinking, Alex Purves, and Sophie Raudnitz. Any nodding is ours.

Finally, we would like to thank our partners Kyriaki and Shanaaz for putting up with our affair, the late nights home from the office, the surreptitious checking of email at all hours, and the obsessive recounting of memories (those borrowed as well as our own). This book is dedicated to them, to our families, and to Homers people everywhere suffering many pains because of the incompetency and greed of their leaders and the capriciousness of the gods who rule our world.

Elton Barker

Reader in Classical Studies at The Open University and Research Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

Joel Christensen

Assistant Professor of Classics, University of Texas at San Antonio

We have translated Homers words ourselves in order to help emphasise certain themes and ideas. But always near to hand are Richmond Lattimores translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey (the former reissued in 2011 with an introduction by Richard Martin). While there are many fine and more up-to-date editions of both epics, Lattimores translations match up with Homers poems line-by-line and preserve the repetitions and special diction that are both characteristic of them and essential to their interpretation. It is important also to note that the names in Homers epics have undergone many transformations from one language to another. In general, we have kept the more popular romanised and anglicised versions: hence Achilles for Akhilleus, Achaeans for Akhaians, Hecuba for Hekabe, etc. From time to time, a particular concept (highlighted in bold) has needed further elucidation: for this, we have used text boxes in order not to interrupt the flow of our story.

Beginning with Homer

The classical world begins with Homer. The ancient Greeks famously didnt have a sacred text like the Bible or the Quran. But they did have Homer. Homer, by some accounts, provided the origins of not only their literature, but also their religious, cultural, and political lives. Poets and scientists from the islands and mainland; Athenian tragedians, comic playwrights, and vase painters; Sicilian rhetoricians and temple-builders; politicians of all stripes and philosophers from every school all these vastly different groups demonstrate intimate familiarity with Homer. Indeed, for disparate communities spread out across the Mediterranean from Massalia (Marseilles) in the west to Cyrene on the North African coast and the Black Sea in the east, Homer provided the glue for what we now call ancient Greek civilisation. The first-century AD Roman historian of rhetoric, Quintilian, likens Homer to the river Oceanus that the ancients thought encircled the world. Everything flows from Homer and back into him.