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GRAZIOSI, Barabara, Homer. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016. 2nd impr. X,154p. Hardbound with dust wrps. ''Homer' is a book written by Barbara Graziosi in the setting of the research project Living Poets: 'A New Approach to Ancient Poetry (Living Poets)'. The project, financed by the European Research Council, proposes to investigate how, over the centuries, readers imagined the classical poets, and how the biographies and representations they produced influenced the comprehension of the works of these poets, reconfiguring their value and meaning as a function of specific historical-cultural contexts. The application of this investigative scheme to Homer, a poet that many readers know “primarily through echoes and refractions in other poems, novels, plays, and works of art – as well as through the ubiquitous myth of the author” (p. 2), has two fundamental objectives, clearly indicated in the “Introduction”: to provide an overall view of Homeric studies, examining the basic questions about the author of the poems, their composition and transmission; to show how certain images of Homer conditioned the interpretation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and how ancient and modern readers approached Homer considering him as a “living poet”, constantly present in the Western collective conscience. This declaration of intent indicates that Homer represents the natural end point of a research path that, in her previous works, has led Barbara Graziosi to investigate the invention of Homer as an “author” and the ancient reception of the Homeric poems; the “resonance of epic” in the more general context of a unified history of the cosmos; and the reception of Homer in the twentieth century. 'Homer' is divided into three parts, dealing with the poet, the 'Iliad' and the 'Odyssey' respectively. (...) Compared to other books by Barbara Graziosi, especially Homer: The Resonance of Epic, 'Homer' is less ambitious but more thorough and more balanced. The author has perfectly mastered the material under investigation and, even when speaking of allusions in the Homeric text to other myths, she does not generally force the interpretation in an attempt to establish improbable chronologies. (...) The book constitutes not only an accurate critical evaluation of Homeric studies for the benefit of scholars, but also a valuable and accessible introduction to the subject for non-specialist readers.' (CARMINE PISANO in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2017.12.16). € 15.00 (New) ISBN: 9780198788300