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.

This book demonstrates how Homeric poetry manages to confer significance on persons and actions, interpreting the world and the lives of the people who inhabit it. Taking central themes like characterization, death, and the gods, the author argues that current ideas of the limitations of "oral poetry" are unreal, and that Homer embodies a view of the world both unique and profound.

Griffin's book provides the intellectual stimuli which are important for my students at the beginning level and which should prove even more thought-provoking for my honors students.