Homer: Odyssey Book IX

Gives students an informed and critical understanding of Homeric language and a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of a culturally charged essential episode in the Odyssey. Also aims to be an essential new step in the ongoing conversation about the Odyssey in general and the Cyclops episode in particular.

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Book IX of the Odyssey is one of the most often read and discussed sections of Homeric poetry. It contains Odysseus' narrative of his encounter with Polyphemus the Cyclops, which not only typifies him as the trickster-hero that he is, but also resonates thematically with later parts of the narrative. This edition provides solid support in reading, understanding, and enjoying this essential episode. The Commentary is designed to be helpful to undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars, providing assistance in understanding Homeric language from elementary to advanced levels. The constant attention to narratological details contributes to the literary appreciation of the episode. The Introduction offers a particularly full guide to Homeric meter, language and dialect as well as discussing in detail the place which the Cyclops episode occupies both in the Odyssey as a whole and in Greek mythology and culture as an expression of the colonial imagination.