Homeric Hymns by Peter Mcdonald
The Homeric Hymns are a crucial work in the Western literary canon, and Peter McDonald's new verse translations offer the major modern account of this still under-appreciated body of ancient poetry. The thirty-three 'hymns' are poetic accounts of ancient Greek gods, including Apollo, Dionysus, Aphrodite, Zeus, and Poseidon. Some of the poems are micro-epics in their own right, recounting the lives and affairs of the divine; taken together, they form a meditation on the primal themes of love, war, betrayal, desire, and paternity, and contemplate the dangerous proximity of gods and men. The book includes a new translation of the 'Life of Homer', a narrative incorporating the shorter poems known as Homer's Epigrams, attributed to Pseudo-Herodotus. Two appendices provide verse translations of episodes from Homer's Odyssey and Hesiod's Theogony, while McDonald gives fresh versions throughout of relevant passages from Pindar, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and other Greek poets. The accompanying notes and commentaries on the poems are the most generous and authoritative of any translation. This book revives an ancient classic for the twenty-first century.
"Peter McDonald s unsettling imagination occupies a middle distance between domesticity and wilderness.. [his] disenchanted vision makes the moments of intimacy and tenderness, when they come, all the more affecting." Michael Longley"
Peter McDonald was born and grew up in Belfast. He won the Newdigate Prize for Poetry and an Eric Gregory Award. A University teacher, he is currently Christopher Tower Student and Tutor in Poetry in the English Language at Christ Church, Oxford. A prominent critic of modern and contemporary poetry, he has published a book on Louis MacNeice, a study of Northern Irish poetry entitled Mistaken Identities, and, most recently, Serious Poetry: Form and Authority from Yeats to Hill. He has edited MacNeice's Selected Plays, and is also the editor of the forthcoming new edition of MacNeice's Collected Poems.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781784101763 |
| ISBN 10 | 1784101761 |
| Title | Homeric Hymns |
| Author | Peter Mcdonald |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Carcanet Press Ltd |
| Year published | 2016-02-25 |
| Number of pages | 286 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |