The Odyssey: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) - Softcover

Homer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140268863 ISBN 13: 9780140268867

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1997

Synopsis

Homer's best-loved and most accessible poem, recounting the great wandering of Odysseus during his ten-year voyage back home to Ithaca, after the Trojan War. A superb new verse translation, now published in trade paperback, before the standard Penguin Classic B format. Please note that this is a 'roughcut' edition and as such the pages have uneven edges.

About this title

Review:

With the Trojan war finally over after many long years, Odysseus wants nothing more than a swift journey home where his throne and beloved wife, Penelope, await him. But Poseidon, the sea god, bears a grudge against him and plans to prevent his return across the wine-dark sea to Ithaca. Many tests of strength and character ensue as Odysseus's journey stretches out over the years, taking in a multitude of strange and wonderful places and creatures. That's the basic plot of the epic poem Homer told nearly 3,000 years ago, but, even now, a new English translation is a true literary event. The ancient story is told in easy-going, beautiful poetry, the characters speak naturally and the action moves along briskly. Even the gods come across as real people, despite the divine powers they constantly exercise. The Odyssey really is a gripping, fast-moving read.

Review:

"[Robert Fitzgerald's translation is] a masterpiece . . . An "Odyssey" worthy of the original." -"The Nation"
"[Fitzgerald's" Odyssey" and "Iliad"] open up once more the unique greatness of Homer's 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 Fitzgerald's 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

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0140268863
• ISBN 13: 9780140268867
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 541
• Editor: Bernard Knox