Odyssey

With an Introduction and Notes by Adam Roberts; Royal Holloway; University of London. Homer's great epic describes the many adventures of Odysseus; Greek warrior; as he strives over many years to return to his home island of Ithaca after the Trojan War. His colourful adventures; his endurance; his love for his wife and son have the same power to move and inspire readers today as they did in Archaic Greece; 2800 years ago. This poem has been translated many times over the years; but Chapman's sinewy; gorgeous rendering (1616) stands in a class of its own. Chapman believed himself inspired by the spirit of Homer himself; and matches the breadth and power of the original with a complex and stunning idiom of his own. John Keats expressed his admiration for the resulting work in the famous sonnet; 'On first looking into Chapman's Homer': 'Much have I travelled in the realms of gold...' This new Wordsworth edition of Chapman's Homer contains accessible annotation; and a detailed introduction that places his masterpiece in the context of his own day; and discusses its influences on later poets.