By Charles Rowan Beye

Description

Charles Rowan Beye's critically acclaimed interpretive introduction to the epic poetry and poets of Ancient Greece, Rome, and Assyria is here reprinted in an expanded second edition with a new preface, new chapter on Gilgamesh, and an Appendix of Further Reading 1993–2005.

For centuries the beginnings of the literary history of the West were defined by the Hebrew Bible—what most people call the Old Testament—and Homer's epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey. These texts were once naively imagined to have come about in splendid isolation either as a miracle of divine creation or the spontaneous combustion of the "Greek genius". The mighty stream of words down over the millennia to our own time are so many generations of offspring still somehow beholden to their initial begetters. Thus do we construe Western Literature.

– from Chapter 8: Gilgamesh

Special Features

Chapters include:
1. Oral Poetry
2. The Poet's World
3. Poetic Technique
4. The Iliad
5. The Odyssey
6. The Argonautica
7. The Aeneid
Further Reading
8. Gilgamesh
Further Reading 1993–2005

Author Bio

Charles Rowan Beye is Distinguished Professor of Classics Emeritus and was Executive Officer of the Classics Graduate Program of the City University of New York. He has taught at Boston University, Stanford University, and Yale University. Beye is the author of numerous books and articles about the classics. His books include Ancient Greek Literature and Society (Cornell 1987) and Odysseus: A Life (Hyperion 2004).

Comments and Reviews

Distinguished Professor of Classics Emeritus Charles Rowan Beye presents Ancient Epic Poetry: Homer, Apollonius, Virgil With A Chapter On The Gilgamesh Poems, an informative and interpretive introduction to classic epic poetry written for readers of all backgrounds including students, non-specialists, and scholars. Now in an expanded second edition with a new preface, a new chapter about the mythic figure of Gilgamesh, and an updated appendix of further reading, Ancient Epic Poetry familiarizes readers with history, tradition, backgrounds, philosophies, and much more pertinent to a more thorough understanding of ancient epic works. Highly recommended, especially for college library and classical poetry reference and literary criticism shelves.

— Wisconsin Bookwatch
March, 2006

A joy to read. This is as wonderfully a refreshing a book in the '90s as its earlier incarnation was in the '60s. Beye's book was heroic a generation ago, has lived on vigorously into another, and promises (like Nestor) to stand out among the third. If I were to tell undergraduates to read a single book to accompany the reading of Homer, Apollonius, and Virgil in translation, it would be this one.

— Robert Lamberton
Princeton University

This is an ideal book for people, like myself, who know no Greek or Latin but need to know where, how, and when our poetry began. Beye is, however, sceptical and humorous; he sees that for years many scholars have — in a polite way — lied about the cruel and violent worlds these superb poems describe. He is free of waffle.

— Christopher Logue

An authoritative book about classical epic, with a fine-tuned sense for lieterature as literature, written by a scholar who really knows how to write.

— Gregory Nagy
Harvard University