The Odyssey

Front Cover
Simon and Schuster, 2005 - Fiction - 416 pages
The epic tale of Odysseus' extraordinary ten-year voyage home after the Trojan War.

The Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey though life. Odysseus's reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance.

This edition includes:
-A concise introduction that gives readers important background information
-A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context
-An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations
-Detailed explanatory notes
-Critical analysis and modern perspectives on the work
-Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
-A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience

Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.
 

Selected pages

Contents

Assembly of the People
15
Book 1ii Telemachus Visits Nestor
27
Book 1v The Visit to King Menelaus
41
CalypsoOdysseus Reaches
64
The Meeting Between Nausicaa
77
Reception of Odysseus
87
Banquet in the House
97
Odysseus Declares Himself
113
Odysseus Reveals Himself
218
Telemachus and His Mother
231
The Fight with IrusOdysseus
248
Telemachus and Odysseus Remove
260
Odysseus Cannot Sleep
277
The Trial of the AxesDuring
288
The Killng of the Suitors
300
Penelope Eventually Recognises
314

Aeolus the Laestrygonians
129
The Visit to the Dead
145
The SirensScylla and Charybdis
162
Odysseus Leaves Scheria
175
Odysseus in the Hut with
187
Athene Summons Telemachus
202
The Ghosts of the Suitors
325
Pronunciation Guide
341
Notes
357
Critical Excerpts
377
Suggestions for the Interested Reader
391
Copyright

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About the author (2005)

Two epic poems are attributed to Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. They are composed in a literary type of Greek, Ionic in basis with Aeolic admixtures. Ranked among the great works of Western literature, these two poems together constitute the prototype for all subsequent Western epic poetry. Modern scholars are generally agreed that there was a poet named Homer who lived before 700 B.C., probably in Asia Minor.

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