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In this spirited book, Porter identifies not one but three Homeric questions. First, when, how and by whom were the Iliad and the Odyssey actually composed (that is, the Homeric Question as we traditionally know it)? Second, how should we interpret the poems? And third, how does Homer work as a figure of the imagination? . . . One example of Porter's brilliance is his discussion of Homer's blindness. Neither historical fact nor unquestioned assumption, 'blindness' was a way for ancient readers to discuss the extraordinary vividness of Homeric epic - a quality that made an impression also on later readers. -- Barbara Graziosi * Times Literary Supplement * Porter presents intriguing instances of writers who, in thrall to the beauty of Homer's poetry, either celebrate or deflect from the actual war carnage described therein. Porter's book provides not only a valuable introduction to the enigma of Homer and the roads taken down the centuries to solve-or at least better understand-that enigma, but also a number of challenging and eye-opening readings of the texts themselves. . . . I found that reading Homer through Porter's eyes was sometimes most enjoyable precisely when our viewpoints diverged. This, in itself, is a sign of a rich and engaging book. * New Criterion * Here is a learned tome worth careful examination. Porter presents an original, focused, intelligent analysis of Homer's oeuvre. The style is breathtaking and the range truly impressive. . . . Summing Up: Recommended. * CHOICE * Brisk and energetic. Students (and teachers) will find much here to provoke thought and argument about the literary, cultural and moral issues, which find expression and exploration via the pages of this most enigmatic of poets. * Journal of Classics Teaching * The book is inexpensive, well produced and proof-read, and has a useful timeline, a guide to further reading, a full bibliography and a general index. Quotations from Homer are given in Lattimore's translation and the style is brisk and energetic. Students (and teachers) will find much here to provoke thought and argument about the literary, cultural and moral issues which find expression and exploration via the pages of this most enigmatic of poets. * Journal of Classics Teaching * Porter is an exceptional scholar. Clear, intelligent, and filled with fascinating examples, this book is contemporary while reaching beyond the fashionable, and it will arouse a good deal of discussion. -- Simon Goldhill, author of Preposterous Poetics Homer: The Very Idea is an extraordinary quest in search not of the elusive Homer but of Homer's elusivity. Porter takes up Homer as a phenomenon repeatedly produced over millennia, in different times and places, as the gauzy point of origin for cultural value that refuses to vanish. By critically engaging the idea of Homer, he delves deep into the very logic of the tradition's value. An inimitable tour de force of transhistorical spectrology. -- Brooke Holmes, author of Gender: Antiquity and Its Legacy This book is a reckoning with who or what we understand Homer to be and how we have reinvented him for our own ends. Porter makes clear the impossibility of Homer both as a concept and as a person, revealing him as the illusion of a perfectly formed whole that has been kept alive for millennia, a ghost in the machine, a phantom both alive and dead. As a leading scholar in dismantling assumptions about the classical past, Porter has written an original, compelling, and eye-opening book that will generate excitement and admiration. -- Alex C. Purves, author of Homer and the Poetics of Gesture

In this spirited book, Porter identifies not one but three Homeric questions. First, when, how and by whom were the Iliad and the Odyssey actually composed (that is, the Homeric Question as we traditionally know it)? Second, how should we interpret the poems? And third, how does Homer work as a figure of the imagination? . . . One example of Porter's brilliance is his discussion of Homer's blindness. Neither historical fact nor unquestioned assumption, 'blindness' was a way for ancient readers to discuss the extraordinary vividness of Homeric epic - a quality that made an impression also on later readers. -- Barbara Graziosi * Times Literary Supplement * Porter presents intriguing instances of writers who, in thrall to the beauty of Homer's poetry, either celebrate or deflect from the actual war carnage described therein. Porter's book provides not only a valuable introduction to the enigma of Homer and the roads taken down the centuries to solve-or at least better understand-that enigma, but also a number of challenging and eye-opening readings of the texts themselves. . . . I found that reading Homer through Porter's eyes was sometimes most enjoyable precisely when our viewpoints diverged. This, in itself, is a sign of a rich and engaging book. * New Criterion * Here is a learned tome worth careful examination. Porter presents an original, focused, intelligent analysis of Homer's oeuvre. The style is breathtaking and the range truly impressive. . . . Summing Up: Recommended. * CHOICE * Brisk and energetic. Students (and teachers) will find much here to provoke thought and argument about the literary, cultural and moral issues, which find expression and exploration via the pages of this most enigmatic of poets. * Journal of Classics Teaching * Homer: The Very Idea is an extraordinary quest in search not of the elusive Homer but of Homer's elusivity. Porter takes up Homer as a phenomenon repeatedly produced over millennia, in different times and places, as the gauzy point of origin for cultural value that refuses to vanish. By critically engaging the idea of Homer, he delves deep into the very logic of the tradition's value. An inimitable tour de force of transhistorical spectrology. -- Brooke Holmes, author of Gender: Antiquity and Its Legacy Porter is an exceptional scholar. Clear, intelligent, and filled with fascinating examples, this book is contemporary while reaching beyond the fashionable, and it will arouse a good deal of discussion. -- Simon Goldhill, author of Preposterous Poetics This book is a reckoning with who or what we understand Homer to be and how we have reinvented him for our own ends. Porter makes clear the impossibility of Homer both as a concept and as a person, revealing him as the illusion of a perfectly formed whole that has been kept alive for millennia, a ghost in the machine, a phantom both alive and dead. As a leading scholar in dismantling assumptions about the classical past, Porter has written an original, compelling, and eye-opening book that will generate excitement and admiration. -- Alex C. Purves, author of Homer and the Poetics of Gesture This book is the culmination of Porter's work of two decades on Homer as the history of an idea... it demonstrates the immense potential of the poems and their author to create new ideas according to the perspectives of their readers. * The Classical Review *

Author Information

James I. Porter is the Irving Stone Professor of Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of numerous books, including Nietzsche and the Philology of the Future, The Invention of Dionysus: An Essay on ‘The Birth of Tragedy,' and The Sublime in Antiquity. He has also edited several books and is a coauthor of Postclassicisms, also published by the University of Chicago Press.  

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