Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T09:04:15.079Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Greek Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 September 2015

Malcolm Heath
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the latest Cambridge Green and Yellow Homer, Angus Bowie tackles Odyssey 13–14, intent on ‘rescuing the reputation of these books’ (ix): a worthy project, to which he makes a significant contribution. He has good things to say on the dovetailing of the two parts of the epic, and provides illuminating analyses of some of the conversations in Book 14. He places particular stress on the major roles given to lower-status characters, in which he discerns ‘a new type of epic’ (16) – a phrase qualified by a cautious question mark. Caution is abandoned, however, when he goes on to say that ‘the ideology of the Odyssey…represents a parity of status of the rich and poor’ (22): the hyperbolic ‘parity’ distracts from a valid underlying point. As in his commentary on Herodotus 8 (G&R 56 [2009], 99), Bowie is generous in providing linguistic support. In this case, perhaps over-generous: is the attention paid to historical linguistics disproportionate to student needs? It is true that ‘if one has an idea of how linguistic forms and constructions came about, they are more comprehensible and so easier to learn and retain’ (ix); my own Greek teacher applied the principle to good effect – but less relentlessly, and with a lighter touch. (The introductory section on Homeric language has four subsections, the third of which has up to five nested sublevels: incorrect cross-references in the glossary under ‘grade’ and ‘laryngeal’ suggest that even Bowie struggled with this elaborate hierarchy.) Some points are forced. When the Phaeacians put Odysseus ashore asleep in a blanket, Bowie comments: ‘Od. is treated almost like a tiny child coming swaddled into the world for the first time; again, the idea of a new start is evoked’ (117): I am not a qualified midwife, but am fairly sure that babies do not come into the world ready-wrapped and slumbering soundly. In his note on 13.268 Bowie cites three passages in the Iliad in which ambush ‘is presented as a cowardly tactic’: one is about the use of distance weapons, not ambush (11.365–95), while the other two celebrate the target's victory without reference to the ambushers’ courage or lack of it (4.391–8, 6.188–90). Ambushes are hard to execute successfully, and therefore dangerous. That is why the best men are chosen for operations of this kind (6.188–90, 13.276–86), and why Achilles is not paying Agamemnon a compliment when he claims that he takes no part in them (1.227–8).

Type
Subject Reviews
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 62 , Issue 2 , October 2015 , pp. 218 - 223
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Homer. Odyssey Books XIII and XIV. Edited with a commentary by A.M. Bowie. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xii + 258. Hardback £55, ISBN: 978-0-521-76354-7; paperback £19.99, ISBN: 978-0-521-15938-8.

2 Sophocles. Selected Fragmentary Plays. Volume II. Edited with translation and commentary by A. H. Sommerstein and T. H. Talboy. Oxford, Aris & Phillips, 2012. Pp. viii + 294. Hardback £50, ISBN: 978-0-8566-8887-4; paperback £24.99, ISBN: 978-0-8566-8892-8.

3 Euripides. Medea. Edited with translation and commentary by Judith Mossman. Aris & Phillips Classical Texts. Oxford, Aris & Phillips, 2011. Pp. viii + 392. Hardback £50, ISBN: 978-0-8566-8783-9; paperback £24.99, ISBN: 978-0-8566-8788-4.

4 Looking at Medea. Essays and a Translation of Euripides’ Tragedy. Edited by David Stuttard. London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2014. Pp. xii + 219. Hardback £60, ISBN: 978-1-4725-2772-1; paperback £18.99, ISBN: 978-1-4725-3051-6.

5 Euripides. Hecuba. By Helene P. Foley. Companions to Greek and Roman Tragedy. London, Bloomsbury, 2015. Pp. xiv + 146. 5 b/w illustrations. Hardback £50, ISBN: 978-1-4725-6907-3; paperback £16.99; ISBN: 978-1-4725-6906-6.

6 Hellenistic Tragedy. Texts, Translations and a Critical Survey. By Agnieszka Kotlinska-Toma. London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. Pp. xvi + 322. 10 figures. Hardback £70, ISBN: 978-1-4725-2421-8.

7 Menander. Samia. Edited with a commentary by Alan H. Sommerstein. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xii + 367. Paperback £22.99, ISBN: 978-0-521-73542-1.

8 Aristophanes & Menander. Three Comedies. Peace. Money, the God. Samia. Translated by Douglass Parker. Edited, with introduction and notes, by Timothy J. More. Indianapolis, IN, Hackett, 2014. Pp. xiv + 230. Hardback £40, ISBN: 978-1-62466-186-0; paperback £13.50, ISBN: 978-1-62466-185-3.

9 Pindar. By Richard Stoneman. London, I.B. Tauris, 2014. Pp. xvi + 232. 10 figures, 2 maps. Hardback £39.50, ISBN: 978-1-78076-184-8; paperback £12.99, ISBN: 978-1-78076-185-5.

10 Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture. L iterary Studies in the Reception of the Histories. By Jessica Priestley. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xii + 274. Hardback £55, ISBN: 978-0-19-965309-6.

11 Crafting Characters. Heroes and Heroines in the Ancient Greek Novel. By Koen De Temmerman. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xxii + 395. Hardback £75, ISBN: 978-0-19-968614-8.

12 Galen. Psychological Writings. Edited by P. N. Singer, with contributions by Daniel Davies and Vivian Nutton. Cambridge Galen Translations. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xviii + 539. 1 map, 1 diagram. Hardback £90, ISBN: 978-0-521-76517-8.