Thomas Van Nortwick, The unknown Odysseus: alternate worlds in Homer's Odyssey, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009. xiv, 144 pages.
- ISBN 9780472116737
- $50.00
Présentation de l'éditeur:
The Unknown Odysseus is a study of howHomer creates two versions of his hero, one who is the triumphantprotagonist of the revenge plot and another, more subversive, anonymousfigure whose various personae exemplify an entirely different set ofassumptions about the world through which each hero moves and about theshape and meaning of human life. Separating the two perspectives allowsus to see more clearly how the poem's dual focus can begin to explainsome of the notorious difficulties readers have encountered in thinkingabout the Odyssey. In The Unknown Odysseus,Thomas Van Nortwick offers the most complete exploration to date of theimplications of Odysseus' divided nature, showing how it allows Homerto explore the riddles of human identity in a profound way that is notusually recognized by studies focusing on only one "real" hero in thenarrative. This new perspective on the epic enriches the world of thepoem in a way that will interest both general readers and classicalscholars.
Thomas Van Nortwick is Nathan A. Greenberg Professor of Classics at Oberlin College and author of Somewhere I Have Never Travelled: The Second Self and the Hero's Journey in Ancient Epic (1992) and Oedipus: The Meaning of a Masculine Life (1998).