Simon Pulleyn – författare

In this, the first book-length study of Greek prayer to appear in English, Simon Pulleyn presents a comprehensive treatment of an aspect of religion which together with sacrifice was at the centre of Greek cult. Through a full examination of all the relevant literary and epigraphic material available from the archaic and classical periods, Pulleyn seeks both to describe the ancient practices and explain their significance. Great stress is laid on the central role of reciprocity in Greek relations with the gods, and the various ways in which they addressed the gods are shown to be related to strategies used in dealing with each other. The book also features an examination of the language used in prayer, e.g. formulae, and rhetorical structures, and draws on Indo-European comparative material.

Iliad I provides the commentary and student aids lacking in larger volumes of Homer's work. It contains a full Introduction designed to highlight the most important features of the text. There are sections on the Iliad and its qualities, the Homeric question, dating, oriental influences, style, gods, men, the transmission of the text, the scholia, the epic dialect, and metre. The Commentary, as well as containing material addressed to advanced readers, is also designed to be accessible to those who are new to Homer. To this end, Greek quotations in the Introduction and Commentary are translated, and technical discussions are marked off in square brackets (beginners may pass over them if they wish). The Greek text of Iliad I is printed with a facing English translation of a literal kind, primarily intended to help beginners to construe the Greek and there is also a full vocabulary list.

Since their composition almost 3,000 years ago the Homeric epics have lost none of their power to grip audiences and fire the imagination: with their stories of life and death, love and loss, war and peace they continue to speak to us at the deepest level about who we are across the span of generations. That being said, the world of Homer is in many ways distant from that in which we live today, with fundamental differences not only in language, social order, and religion, but in basic assumptions about the world and human nature. This volume offers a detailed yet accessible introduction to ancient Greek culture through the lens of Book One of the Odyssey, covering all of these aspects and more in a comprehensive Introduction designed to orient students in their studies of Greek literature and history. The full Greek text is included alongside a facing English translation which aims to reproduce as far as feasible the word order and sound play of the Greek original and is supplemented by a Glossary of Technical Terms and a full vocabulary keyed to the specific ways that words are used in Odyssey I. At the heart of the volume is a full-length line-by-line commentary, the first in English since the 1980s and updated to bring the latest scholarship to bear on the text: focusing on philological and linguistic issues, its close engagement with the original Greek yields insights that will be of use to scholars and advanced students as well as to those coming to the text for the first time.