An Introduction to Homer

This is a book for all readers of Homer, whether in translation or in the original. It attempts to characterize the poetic art of the Iliad and Odyssey and to analyse in a simple way the reasons for its effectiveness. It takes the poems as they stand, and is only secondarily and occasionally concerned, in text and notes, with the quesion of their origins and the many interesting problems of scholarship to which the study of them has given rise.