The literalist provides the reader, or at least the student, with the comfortable assurance that for the vast designative tapestry of the original a pink thread may sometimes do duty for a red one, or a blurred one for a blurred one--but never a blue one for a red one, and never a polychrome burst for a single color of the original~ Impressionists, on the other hand, for all the rationales they can muster, can never free themselves of the charge leveled by T. S. Eliot at Gilbert Murray (who translates rather more literally than most of the impressionists of recent decades):"So here are two striking phrases which we owe to Mr. Murray; it is he who has sapped our soul and shattered the cup of all life for Euripides.... Professor Murray has simply interposed between Euripides and ourselves a barrier more impenetrable than the Greek language."

...

The Second Edition of this Norton Critical Edition continues to be based on Albert Cook’s translation, widely acclaimed for its poetic phrasing and linguistic curacy.The English translation of Homer’s masterpiece matches the Greek line for line; no other translation is more faithful to the original. The result is a melodic version that preserves Homer’s style.A glossary and a map of the Greek world accompany the text.

The Odyssey in Antiquity provides contextual materials and commentary to increase readers’ appreciation for literature and life in the Homeric age.A collection of nine assessments of The Odyssey by ancient and medieval writers, including Pindar, Aristotle, Seneca, and Scholia, is featured.Essays by G. S. Kirk and Martin P. Nilsson, respectively, discuss poetic conventions and the cioreligious order Homer depicts.

Criticism provides sixteen wide-ranging interpretations of The Odyssey.Included are seminal essays by Jean Racine, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ezra Pound, Cedric H. Whitman, and A. C. Goodson.Albert Cook, Elizabeth Storz, Norman Austin, and John Peradotto provide new perspectives on the poem.

An updated Selected Bibliography is also included.

Foreword

Preface on the Translation

The Text of The Odyssey

 The Odyssey

 Glossary

 Map: The Greek World, with places mentioned in The Odyssey

Backgrounds

 THE ODYSSEY IN ANTIQUITY

 Pindar · Nemean VII

 Proclus · The Telegony

 Porphyry · De Antro Nympharum in Opuscula Selecta

 Aristotle · From Poetics

 Seneca · From Epistles

 Longinus · On the Sublime

 Demetrius · On Style

 Scholia · Graeca in Homeri Odysseam

 Eustathius · Commentarii ad Homeri Odysseam

 G. S. Kirk · Heroic Age and Heroic Poetry

 Martin P. Nilsson · [Homeric Anthropomorphism and Rationalism]

Criticism

 Jean Racine · [Homer Begins Modestly]

 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · From Letters

 Ezra Pound · [The Homeric World]

 Gabriel Germain · Polyphemus and African Initiation Rites

 T. W. Adorno · Odysseus, or Mythos and Enlightenment

 Cedric H. Whitman · The Odyssey and Change

 Anne Amory · The Reunion of Odysseus and Penelope

 Albert Cook · The Man of Many Turns · Visual Aspects of the Homeric Simile in Indo-European Context

 John H. Finley, Jr. · The Heroic Mind

 Charles Segal · Bard and Audience in Homer

 Paolo Vivante · Time and Life in Homer

 Elizabeth Storz · The Beginning of the Odyssey

 Edwin Dolin · Odysseus in Phaeacia

 Norman Austin · Intimations of Order

 John Peradotto · Man in the Middle Voice: Name and Narration in the Odyssey

 A. C. Goodson · Homer and Ouranos

Selected Bibliography