The purpose of this book is to contribute to the appreciation of the linguistic, literary and contextual value of Homeric personal names. This is an old topic, which famously interested Plato, and an object of constant scholarly attention from the time of ancient commentators to the present day. The book begins with an introduction to the particularly complex set of factors that affect all efforts to interpret Homeric names. The main chapters are structured around the character and action of selected heroes in their Homeric contexts (in the case of the Iliad, a heroic war; the Odyssey chapter encompasses more than one planes of action). They offer a survey of modern etymologies, set against ancient views on names and naming, in order to reconstruct (as far as possible) the reception of significant names by ancient audiences and further to shed light on the parameters surrounding the choice and use of personal names in Homer. An Appendix touches on the underexplored career of Homeric personal names as historical names, offering data and a preliminary analysis.

Studie over het werk van de Oudgriekse dichter (8e eeuw v. Chr.) tegen de achtergrond van de Griekse orale literatuur.

The purpose of this book is to contribute to the appreciation of the linguistic, literary and contextual value of Homeric personal names. This is an old topic, which famously interested Plato, and an object of constant scholarly attention from the time of ancient commentators to the present day. The book begins with an introduction to the particularly complex set of factors that affect all efforts to interpret Homeric names. The main chapters are structured around the character and action of selected heroes in their Homeric contexts (in the case of the Iliad, a heroic war; the Odyssey chapter encompasses more than one planes of action). They offer a survey of modern etymologies, set against ancient views on names and naming, in order to reconstruct (as far as possible) the reception of significant names by ancient audiences and further to shed light on the parameters surrounding the choice and use of personal names in Homer. An Appendix touches on the underexplored career of Homeric personal names as historical names, offering data and a preliminary analysis.

Benardete's 1955 doctoral dissertation in social thought for the University of Chicago was published in two parts in the St. John's Review in the spring and summer of 1985. The parts do not take the opposing hero's of Homer's Iliad in turn, as might be expected, but discuss first the style and then the plot. There is no index. Annotation 2005 Book

What does it mean to be a hero? The ancient Greeks who gave us Achilles and Odysseus had a very different understanding of the term than we do today. Based on the legendary Harvard course that Gregory Nagy has taught for well over thirty years, The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours explores the roots of Western civilization and offers a masterclass in classical Greek literature. We meet the epic heroes of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, but Nagy also considers the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the songs of Sappho and Pindar, and the dialogues of Plato. Herodotus once said that to read Homer was to be a civilized person. To discover Nagy’s Homer is to be twice civilized. “Fascinating, often ingenious... A valuable synthesis of research finessed over thirty years.” —Times Literary Supplement “Nagy exuberantly reminds his readers that heroes—mortal strivers against fate, against monsters, and...against death itself—form the heart of Greek literature... [He brings] in every variation on the Greek hero, from the wily Theseus to the brawny Hercules to the ‘monolithic’ Achilles to the valiantly conflicted Oedipus.” —Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly

Offering a new, Plato-inspired reading of the Iliad and the Odyssey, this book traces the divergent consequences of love of honor and love of one's own private life for human excellence, justice, and politics. Analyzing Homer's intricate character portraits, Michelle M. Kundmueller concludes that the poet shows that the excellence or virtue to which humans incline depends on what they love most. Ajax's character demonstrates that human beings who seek honor strive, perhaps above all, to display their courage in battle, while Agamemnon's shows that the love of honor ultimately undermines the potential for moderation, destabilizing political order. In contrast to these portraits, the excellence that Homer links to the love of one's own, such as by Odysseus and his wife, Penelope, fosters moderation and employs speech to resolve conflict. It is Odysseus, rather than Achilles, who is the pinnacle of heroic excellence. Homer's portrait of humanity reveals the value of love of one's own as the better, albeit still incomplete, precursor to a just political order. Kundmueller brings her reading of Homer to bear on contemporary tensions between private life and the pursuit of public honor, arguing that individual desires continue to shape human excellence and our prospects for justice.