Book Details

Combining a sublime poetic sensitivity with thorough scholarship, this work offers original analyses of many topics, including the Homeric narrator's presentation of his story, the evocation of character through direct speech, the organization of speeches and descriptions into vivid dramatic situations, the pacing and emotional weight of similes and narratorial interventions, and the expressive variation in rhythms and word-groupings. A prolific and insightful contributor to Homeric scholarship, Bassett was invited to deliver the Sather Classical Lectures at Berkeley on The Poetry of Homer, but he died with the manuscript unpublished. This work, published posthumously in 1938, has left its mark on a generation of classicists. Lexington Books is proud to bring such an important and influential book back into print in this new edition, edited and introduced by Bruce Heiden with a foreword by Greg Nagy.