Odysseus: A Life

From an acclaimed classicist comes a witty, unusual, and fascinating 'biography' of Homer's fictional Bronze Age hero, Odysseus Everyone knows something about Odysseus: how he defeated the Trojans in a surprise attack with a massive wooden horse, wandered the Mediterranean seas for years trying to get home, confronted the Cyclops, and killed the suitors of his faithful wife Penelope back at his Ithaca palace. Odysseus turns up everywhere: Homer's epics The Iliad and The Odyssey, Tennyson's poem 'Ulysses' (the Roman name for Odysseus), Constantine Cavafy's Ithaca, and more. Even the Coen brothers based a film, O Brother Where Art Thou, on his voyage. But no one has chronicled Odysseus' life from start to finish -- until now. In this entertaining 'biography, ' Charles Beye fills out the story of this extraordinary figure, at the same time portraying Odysseus' evolution through the course of a strange and adventuresome life, at times so remote, at times so immediate in the contemporary perspective.

Author: Charles Rowan Beye
Publisher: Hyperion Books
Published: 02/01/2004
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.77lbs
Size: 8.56h x 5.92w x 0.76d
ISBN: 9781401300241

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 11/15/2003 pg. 1345
Publishers Weekly 12/15/2003 pg. 62
Library Journal 01/01/2004 pg. 109
Booklist 02/15/2004 pg. 1047

About the Author
Charles Rowan Beye is Distinguished Professor of Classics Emeritus at the City University of New York and has taught at Boston University, Stanford University, and Yale University. The author of numerous books and articles about the classics (particularly Homer and epic poetry), he divides his time between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and New York City.