Champaign Public Library

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2018

Title:	The Odyssey
Author:	Homer, author.
Copies Available in CU:	0 (of 8)
Current Requests:	7
Format:	Book
Publisher, Date:	New York : W.W. Norton and Company, 2018.
	582 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm
Summary:	Composed at the rosy-fingered dawn of world literature almost three millennia ago, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty and power; about marriage and family; about travelers, hospitality, and the yearning for home. This fresh, authoritative translation captures the beauty of this ancient poem as well as the drama of its narrative. Its characters are unforgettable, none more so than the "complicated" hero himself, a man of many disguises, many tricks, and many moods, who emerges in this version as a more fully rounded human being than ever before. Written in iambic pentameter verse and a vivid, contemporary idiom, Emily Wilson's Odyssey sings with a voice that echoes Homer's music; matching the number of lines in the Greek original, the poem sails along at Homer's swift, smooth pace. A fascinating, informative introduction explores the Bronze Age milieu that produced the epic, the poem's major themes, the controversies about its origins, and the unparalleled scope of its impact and influence. Maps drawn especially for this volume, a pronunciation glossary, and extensive notes and summaries of each book make this is an Odyssey that will be treasured by a new generation of readers.
Contents:	Introduction -- Translator's note -- Maps. The world of The Odyssey -- The Aegean and Asia Minor -- Mainland Greece -- The Peloponnese -- The Odyssey. The boy and the goddess -- A dangerous journey -- An old king remembers -- What the sea god said -- From the goddess to the storm -- A princess and her laundry -- A magical kingdom -- The songs of a poet -- A pirate in a shepherd's cave -- The winds and the witch -- The dead -- Difficult choices -- Two tricksters -- A loyal slave -- The prince returns -- Father and son -- Insults and abuse -- Two beggars -- The queen and the beggar -- The last banquet -- An archery contest -- Bloodshed -- The olive tree bed -- Restless spirits.
Subjects:	Odysseus, King of Ithaca (Mythological character) Poetry. POETRY / Ancient & Classical. POETRY / Epic.
Other Author:	Wilson, Emily R., 1971- translator.
ISBN:	9780393089059 0393089053 9780393356250 0393356256 9780393356250 0393356256

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Summary

Composed at the rosy-fingered dawn of world literature almost three millennia ago, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty, and power; about marriage and family; about travelers, hospitality, and the yearning for home.

This fresh, authoritative translation captures the beauty of this ancient poem as well as the drama of its narrative. Its characters are unforgettable, none more so than the "complicated" hero himself, a man of many disguises, many tricks, and many moods, who emerges in this version as a more fully rounded human being than ever before.

Written in iambic pentameter verse and a vivid, contemporary idiom, Emily Wilson's Odyssey sings with a voice that echoes the epic's music, sailing along at Homer's swift, smooth pace.

A fascinating, informative introduction explores the Bronze Age milieu that produced the epic, the poem's major themes, the controversies about its origins, and the unparalleled scope of its impact and influence. Maps drawn especially for this volume, a pronunciation glossary, and extensive notes and summaries of each book make this an Odyssey that will be treasured by a new generation of readers.

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New York Times Review

the odyssey translated by Emily Wilson, read by Claire Danes. (Audible.) Wilson is the first woman to translate Homer's epic of adventure and yearning for home into English. It's a version that has been widely praised for its lyricism and use of contemporary idiom, made even more vibrant here through the voice of Danes, have a nice day by Billy Crystal and Quinton Peeples, read by Crystal, Kevin Kline, Annette Bening, Dick Cavett, Darrell Hammond, Rachel Dratch, et al. (Audible.) This live reading of Crystal and Peeples's new play, performed at New York's Minetta Lane Theater, captures its dark humor, the story of a fictional president of the United States and his encounter with the angel of death, the power of love by Bishop Michael Curry, read by the author. (Penguin Audio.) Best known now for delivering a passionate sermon at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Curry, the presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church, here offers more thoughts on love and social justice, how to be alone by Lane Moore, read by the author. (Simon & Schuster Audio.) Moore is the former sex and relationships editor for Cosmopolitan and in this memoir she tells of her lonely childhood and teenage years, spent largely without any family, and the struggle to find connection with others, thanks a thousand by A. J. Jacobs, read by the author. (Simon & Schuster Audio/TED.) The stunt writer returns, this time with a book about his attempt to personally thank every single person involved in producing his morning cup of coffee. This aim sets him on a journey from miners in Minnesota to farmers in Colombia, musing about the benefits of gratitude along the way. & Noteworthy "To my mind, talent was innate: You either had it, or you didn't; you were brilliant, or you were not. This mindset made writing no less than torturous. Listening to an audiobook version of grit by Angela Duckworth changed that. Duckworth's book is essentially an ode to practice, arguing that far from innate, genius is a result of a combination of passion for your subject and perseverance in your mastery of it. It's a simple but potentially transformative idea. I played Duckworth's narration throughout the day, in the shower through waterproof speakers or dodging pedestrians near Herald Square, and it was a balm for my perfectionism. Afterward, I started seeing the message of 'Grit' everywhere: It's the work you need to fall in love with, not the end result. And as the long, sometimes challenging paths trailing my heroes came into view, I felt safer getting on the road behind them." - CONCEPCIÓN DE LEÓN, DIGITAL STAFF WRITER, BOOKS, ON WHAT SHE'S READING.

Library Journal Review

The enduring character of the epic poem The Odyssey invites repeated attempts at translation, here most recently an energetic verse rendition by Wilson (classical studies, Univ. of Pennsylvania), who has authored books on the nature of tragedy, Socrates, and Seneca, as well as translations of plays by Euripides and Seneca. Wilson's goal is for the work to sound natural to the modern reader without falling into contemporizing anachronisms, such as those found in the translation of Stanley Lombardo. Unlike Robert Fagles or Robert Fitzgerald, Wilson deploys a natural English syntax, while closely following Homer's lines. Like Fagles and Barry P. Powell, she adopts iambic pentameter and seeks a diction that does not sound archaic, using the Latinate version of names and submerging many of the recurrent epithets. Thus Odysseus, "the man of many turns," becomes the "complicated man," or "bright-eyed goddess, Athena" becomes "she looked him straight into the eye," true to the spirit of the text if not always the word. -Wilson is particularly sensitive to the tone and description applied to the many women throughout the narrative, especially Helen and Penelope. VERDICT Wilson offers a fluent, straightforward, and accessible version of the Homeric epic; a solid reading edition.-Thomas L. Cooksey, formerly with Armstrong Atlantic State Univ., Savannah © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Review

Fresh version of one of the world's oldest epic poems, a foundational text of Western literature.Sing to me, O muse, of thewell, in the very opening line, the phrase Wilson (Classical Studies, Univ. of Pennsylvania) chooses is the rather bland "complicated man," the adjective missing out on the deviousness implied in the Greek polytropos, which Robert Fagles translated as "of twists and turns." Wilson has a few favorite words that the Greek doesn't strictly support, one of them being "monstrous," meaning something particularly heinous, and to have Telemachus "showing initiative" seems a little report-card-ish and entirely modern. Still, rose-fingered Dawn is there in all her glory, casting her brilliant light over the wine-dark sea, and Wilson has a lively understanding of the essential violence that underlies the complicated Odysseus' great ruse to slaughter the suitors who for 10 years have been eating him out of palace and home and pitching woo to the lovely, blameless Penelope; son Telemachus shows that initiative, indeed, by stringing up a bevy of servant girls, "their heads all in a row / strung up with the noose around their necks / to make their death an agony." In an interesting aside in her admirably comprehensive introduction, which extends nearly 80 pages, Wilson observes that the hanging "allows young Telemachus to avoid being too close to these girls' abused, sexualized bodies," and while her reading sometimes tends to be overly psychologized, she also notes that the violence of Odysseus, by which those suitors "fell like flies," mirrors that of some of the other ungracious hosts he encountered along his long voyage home to Ithaca.More faithful to the original but less astonishing than Christopher Logue's work and lacking some of the music of Fagles' recent translations of Homer; still, a readable and worthy effort. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	p. 1
	Translator's Note	p. 81
	Maps	p. 93
1	The World of The Odyssey	p. 94
2	The Aegean and Asia Minor	p. 96
3	Mainland Greece	p. 98
4	The Peloponnese	p. 100
	The Odyssey
Book 1	The Boy and the Goddess	p. 105
Book 2	A Dangerous Journey	p. 120
Book 3	An Old King Remembers	p. 135
Book 4	What the Sea God Said	p. 152
Book 5	From the Goddess to the Storm	p. 180
Book 6	A Princess and Her Laundry	p. 197
Book 7	A Magical Kingdom	p. 208
Book 8	The Songs of a Poet	p. 220
Book 9	A Pirate in a Shepherd's Cave	p. 240
Book 10	The Winds and the Witch	p. 259
Book 11	The Dead	p. 279
Book 12	Difficult Choices	p. 301
Book 13	Two Tricksters	p. 316
Book 14	A Loyal Slave	p. 332
Book 15	The Prince Returns	p. 350
Book 16	Father and Son	p. 369
Book 17	Insults and Abuse	p. 386
Book 18	Two Beggars	p. 408
Book 19	The Queen and the Beggar	p. 424
Book 20	The Last Banquet	p. 445
Book 21	An Archery Contest	p. 460
Book 22	Bloodshed	p. 476
Book 23	The Olive Tree Bed	p. 494
Book 24	Restless Spirits	p. 507
	Notes	p. 527
	Glossary	p. 553
	Acknowledgments	p. 579

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