Jasper Griffin - Böcker

A comprehensive view of the ancient Greek world, its history and its achievements. The legacy of the Hellenistic world is vast--it ranges from architecture to philosophy, literature, and the visual arts to military strategy and science. This authoritative study covers the period from the eighth century BC, which witnessed the emergence of the Greek city-states, to the conquests of Alexander the Great and the establishment of the Greek monarchies some five centuries later.Chapters dealing with political and social history are interspersed with chapters on philosophy and the arts, including Homer, Greek myth, Aristotle, and Plato, Greek dramatists such as Sophocles and Aristophanes, and the flourishing of the visual and plastic arts.This volume, first published as part of The Oxford History of the Classical World, includes illustrations, maps, a Chronology of Events, and suggestions for Further Reading.

In less than fifty-three years, Rome subjected most of the known world to its rule. Written by a team of specialist scholars, this book traces the rise of Rome from its origins as a cluster of villages to the foundation of the Empire and its consolidation in the first two centuries CE. It includes chapters on social and political history, the Emperors, art and architecture, and the works of the leading Roman poets, historians, and philosophers.

Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones was Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford University from 1960 to 1989. A scholar of commanding intelligence and learning, he has made important contributions to our knowledge of ancient Greece across the full range from textual analysis to Greek religion and the classical tradition. In September 1997 a group of his friends, mostly former pupils and established scholars themselves, gathered to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday and to offer him a set of papers on Sophocles, an author especially close to his heart. This volume collects those papers, which give very varied approaches to the poet, his work, and his influence. Professor Bernard Knox contributes a portrait of Sir Hugh as a scholar and a man as an introduction to the volume.

The Iliad' and Odyssey' are not just good stories. Homeric poetry manages to confer significance on the persons and actions, and to interpret the world and human life and death. This book shows how this is done.

A concise introduction, text, and commentary on this Book, the turning point in the plot of the poem and one of its poetical peaks, rich in vivid speech and psychology, and raising fundamental questions about heroism and the meaning of human life. There is a general account of Homeric style and language, and of the formulaic system of composition. The Embassy to Achilles is discussed in the context of an accessible general account of heroic poetry and of the Iliad as a whole. The commentary explains basic points of language and style; it also discusses disputed questions and offers a full literary commentary on all aspects of the text. Quoted Greek is translated.

This handy guide to The Odyssey will introduce students to a text, which has been fundamental to literature for nearly 3000 years. Readers will be introduced to the world in that the Odyssey was produced, to the text itself and to its origins in oral poetry. This volume gives a summary of the poem and examines its structure. The unity, values and techniques of the poem are clearly outlined, as are the reasons for its longstanding appeal. This guide delves into the diverse world of the story; that of monsters, gods, and enchantresses which interacts with the very different world of the home, marriage and the family. Students will be introduced to the essential themes of loyalty and betrayal, and guided through the narrative of Odysseus' adventures, which also illustrate the workings of the world and the justice of heaven. Readers will also find a very helpful guide to further reading.

"The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" stand at the very beginning of Greek literature. Much has been written about their origins and authorship, but Jasper Griffin, although he touches briefly on those questions, is here concerned with the ideas of the poems, which have had such an incalculable influence on the ideas of the West. He shows that each of the two epics has its own coherent and suggestive view of the world and of man's place in it.