...
Show More
It took me a long time to read Pindar's Homer, partly because I was busy at times, but mostly because the text is so rich and dense with information that it took a while to digest. Like other books by Gregory Nagy, it delves intensively into linguistic details. But more than any other book of his that I've read, it builds a gigantic case, encompassing not just Homer and Pindar, but other authors like Hesiod, Herodotus, Theognis, and Solon, among others. The book touches on topics like how Homer's work evolved into the written state in which we have inherited it, how certain traditions became pan-Hellenic while others remained locked to local areas, and also builds on topics some of his previous works discussed like how the epic hexameter evolved from the variety of lyric meters (counterintuitive, because Homer's poems are older than any of the surviving texts in lyric meters).
I am only scratching the surface of what this marvelous book includes. I highly recommend it to all who are interested in ancient Greek literature.
I am only scratching the surface of what this marvelous book includes. I highly recommend it to all who are interested in ancient Greek literature.
