Selected Recommended general readings on Homer and epic poetry
updated 12 March 2003 (page in progress)

  1. Ahl, Frederick and Hannah Roisman, The Odyssey re-formed
  2. Austin, N. Archery at the Dark Side of the Moon Beye, C.R. Ancient Epic Poetry
  3. Bakker, Egbert J. Poetry in speech : orality and Homeric discourse
  4. Burgess, Jonathan S. The tradition of the Trojan War in Homer and the epic cycle
  5. Cairns, Douglas, editor, Oxford Readings in Homer's Iliad
  6. Clay, J. S. The Wrath of Athena
  7. Cohen, Beth, editor, The Distaff Side: Representing the Female in Homer’s Odyssey
  8. Cook, Erwin, The Odyssey in Athens
  9. Davies, Malcolm, The Greek Epic Cycle
  10. Dimock, George, The Unity of the Odyssey
  11. Doherty, Lillian, Siren songs : gender, audiences, and narrators in the Odyssey
  12. Dué, Casey, Homeric variations on a lament by Briseis
  13. Edwards, Mark, Homer: Poet of the Iliad
  14. Felson-Rubin, Nancy, Regarding Penelope: From Character to Poetics
  15. Feeny, Dennis, The Gods in Epic
  16. Finley, Moses. The World of Odysseus. (Revised edition, 1978) (treats historical Greece and Homer)
  17. Ford, Andrew, Homer: the poetry of the past
  18. Graziosi, Barbara, Inventing Homer : the early reception of epic
  19. Griffin, Jasper, Homer on Life and Death
  20. Hammer, Dean The Iliad as politics : the performance of political thought
  21. Haubold, Johannes, Homer's people : epic poetry and social formation
  22. Hexter, Ralph, A guide to the Odyssey : a commentary on the English translation of Robert Fitzgerald
  23. Katz, Marilyn Arthur, Penelope’s Renown
  24. Kirk, G.S., The Songs of Homer
  25. Lord, Albert, The Singer of Tales (important account of oral poetry)
  26. Mackie, Hilary, Talking Trojan : speech and community in the Iliad
  27. Martin, Richard, The Language of Heroes
  28. Muellner, Leonard, The anger of Achilles : mênis in Greek epic
  29. Murnaghan, S. Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey
  30. Nagy, Gregory, The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry
  31. Nilsson, Martin P. Homer and Mycenae
  32. Olson, S. Douglas, Blood and iron : stories and storytelling in Homer's Odyssey
  33. Page, D. History and the Homeric Iliad
  34. Redfield, James, Nature and Culture in the Iliad (my most influential teacher)
  35. Schein, S., editor, Reading the Odyssey
  36. Schein, Seth, The Mortal Hero
  37. Seaford, Richard. Reciprocity and ritual : Homer and tragedy in the developing city-state
  38. Segal, Charles, Singers, heroes, and gods in the Odyssey
  39. Shay, Jonathan, Achilles in Vietnam : combat trauma and the undoing of character
  40. Shive, David, Naming Achilles
  41. Slatkin, Laura, The Power of Thetis: Allusion and Interpretation in the Iliad
  42. Taplin, Oliver, Homeric Soundings
  43. Thalmann, W. G., Conventions of Form and Thought in Early Greek Thought and Poetry
  44. Thalmann, William G The swineherd and the bow : representations of class in the Odyssey
  45. Van Nortwick, Thomas Somewhere I Have Never Travelled. Excellent examintion of epic poetry in light of theories of Carl Jung
  46. Whitman, Cedric, Homer and the Heroic Tradition
  47. Wilson, Donna, Ransom, revenge, and heroic identity in the Iliad

The Aeneid

  1. Hardie, Philip R, Virgil's Aeneid : Cosmos and imperium
  2. Johnson, WR, Darkness Visible
  3. Lee, M. Owen, Fathers and Sons in the Aeneid
  4. O'Hara, James J. Death and the optimistic prophecy in Vergil's Aeneid
  5. Putnam, Michael C. J. , The poetry of the Aeneid ; four studies in imaginative unity and design
  6. -----------Virgil's epic designs : ekphrasis in the Aeneid
  7. -----------Virgil's Aeneid : interpretation and influence
  8. Wiltshire, Susan Ford, Public and private in Vergil's Aeneid

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