The Songs of Homer (Cambridge University Press, 1962) was a major contribution to Homeric studies, establishing important theories about the composition, structure and transmission of the monumental poems. In this 1976 volume, Geoffrey Kirk returns to Homer, but the themes are largely different. He considers in particular the nature of oral and epic poetry, and the meaning of an oral tradition. There are problems here of interest not only to classicists and Homeric specialists but also to students of English and comparative literature, and to anthropologists concerned with the literature of traditional societies. Those pieces that were previously published were revised and unified for the volume. The longest section, on 'the oral and the literary epic', is derived from the J. H. Gray Lectures, which Professor Kirk delivered in Cambridge in 1974 and which had not been previously published in any form.

Product Description: Con enorme agudeza crítica y desde su experiencia de helenista familiarizado tanto con la literatura griega como con las constantes del pensamiento filosófico y prefilosófico de los antiguos griegos, G. S. Kirk pasa revista en este libro a las teorías generales que han tratado de explicar el fenómeno de los mitos, desde la escuela antropológica inglesa y el funcionalismo de Malinowski al estructuralismo de Lévi-Strauss, pasando por las teorías de Cassirer sobre la expresión simbólica, y las exposiciones psicológicas de Freud y Jung sobre fantasía y sueños y arquetipos y símbolos...read more

Product Description: The literature of the western world begins with one of its greatest achievements. The stories of the wrath of Achilles and its consequences, and of the wanderings of Odysseus, have been admired from ancient times to the present day...read more

Product Description: Las teorías sobre los mitos son abundantes. Se han abordado como ecos de sucesos meteorológicos y cosmológicos, como propuestas de explicación de algunos de los sucesos más extraños sucedidos en el mundo, como una especie de ciencia primitiva, como historias inventadas para legitimar costumbres o instituciones ya existente...read more

(view table of contents)

(view table of contents)

Puts forth original theories concerning the origins and cultural significance of the Greek myths (view table of contents)

(view table of contents)

(view table of contents)

Product Description: This is Volume Five of the major six-volume Commentary on Homer's Iliad now being prepared under the general editorship of Professor G.S. Kirk. Volumes I and II, published in 1985 and 1990 respectively, were edited by Professor Kirk himself...read more

(view table of contents)

(view table of contents)