The Odyssey

(Paperback)

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Description

Homer's epic tale of travel, monsters and Gods in an accessible translation by W.H.D. Rouse. Richly imagined by the blind bard around 900 B.C.E., Homer's story follows Odysseus on a decade-long journey as he flees Cyclops, angers his gods, resists the Sirens, averts his eyes from Medusa and docks in exotic cities - ever longing to return to his wife and son. Read the epic story in this accessibly, lively and compelling translation, now available in an affordable Signet edition.

Reviews

[Robert Fitzgeralds translation is] a masterpiece . . . An Odyssey worthy of the original. The Nation

[Fitzgeralds Odyssey and Iliad] open up once more the unique greatness of Homers art at the level above the formula; yet at the same time they do not neglect the brilliant texture of Homeric verse at the level of the line and the phrase. The Yale Review

[In] Robert Fitzgeralds translation . . . there is no anxious straining after mighty effects, but rather a constant readiness for what the occasion demands, a kind of Odyssean adequacy to the task in hand, and this line-by-line vigilance builds up into a completely credible imagined world.
from the Introduction by Seamus Heaney

Author Bio

Deborah Steiner is Professor of Greek at Columbia University. She was raised in England, holds degrees from Harvard, Oxford, and the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of several books on Greek literature and culture of the archaic and classical period.