Customer Reviews

Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece (Mentor)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This arrangement and translation of the classic Gręco-Roman myths is enjoyable, absorbing, and unique. The translator has the rare gift of preserving the poetryof the original but still making the translation adapt to English vernacular. Also, the book is written in the style of a verbal storyteller, and reflects on the riseof Christianity and the subsequent death of the Olympians.

Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece: Mythology's Great Tales of Valor and Romance is a 1934 book of Greek mythology by W. H. D. Rouse, who was known for pioneering the Direct Method of teaching Greek and Latin in Britain. This book contains the Greek creation myths, the tales of Heracles, Jason, Theseus, and Perseus, and miscellaneous smaller stories. It is geared to a young adult audience.

Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece has been heavily edited for content and length. The book is only 200 pages, which isn't enough space for half of these stories. Some of the tales are completely butchered; there's so much left out of Odysseus's story, for example, that one wonders why Rouse bothered with it in the first place. At times, Rouse rushes through stories and recounts events in a dry, history book way that completely robs these tales of their charm and appeal.

Rouse doesn't tell the stories in the most coherent fashion - not that the reader can't follow what is going on, but Rouse often leaves out characters' motivations for doing things. He will trudge through a pedestrian narrative only to omit some of the most interesting parts of many of these stories, as well as explanations for why or how things happened. Frequently the reader will reach the part of a story where he expects the payoff, only for Rouse to say, as he often does, "I can't tell you about that now."

This book includes commentary from the author in the text (example: "You see, Achilles and King Agamemnon had both lost their temper. I do not make any excuse for either of them; I am just telling the story."). Few of his observations are particularly astute or clever, and almost none of them would be necessary if he had done a better job telling the story.

In the best books of mythology, a writer breathes life into the ancient stories. Rouse, conversely, has made them dry and tedious. There's no real need to be lenient here because there are a million books on Greek mythology, for every target audience, and it shouldn't be difficult to find a better one than Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece, which is frustratingly poor.

I think this is a good starting book to engage people, like myself that are just beginning to get interested in mythology. Obviously some stories are severely shortened in order to include many stories, but this was a good read and movtivated me to go further--I am re-reading the Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell now.

My son had to read this book for his school's summer reading program. He's going into 9th grade. It provide good basic background on the Greek gods and, surprisingly, he enjoyed reading it. He generally does not like reading so this was a bit of a surprise.

I found this book to be very thorough and descriptive. It goes into elaborate detail about each event discussed. It was not particularly easy to read; the author depends on your memory quite a bit because all of the stories are linked to each other. I found that the book was written more to inform than entertain, but considering that's what i was looking for, i enjoyed it.

Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece: Mythology's Great Tales of Valor and Romance is a 1934 book of Greek mythology by W. H. D. Rouse, who was known for pioneering the Direct Method of teaching Greek and Latin in Britain. This book contains the Greek creation myths, the tales of Heracles, Jason, Theseus, and Perseus, and miscellaneous smaller stories. It is geared to a young adult audience.

Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece has been heavily edited for content and length. The book is only 200 pages, which isn't enough space for half of these stories. Some of the tales are completely butchered; there's so much left out of Odysseus's story, for example, that one wonders why Rouse bothered with it in the first place. At times, Rouse rushes through stories and recounts events in a dry, history book way that completely robs these tales of their charm and appeal.

Rouse doesn't tell the stories in the most coherent fashion - not that the reader can't follow what is going on, but Rouse often leaves out characters' motivations for doing things. He will trudge through a pedestrian narrative only to omit some of the most interesting parts of many of these stories, as well as explanations for why or how things happened. Frequently the reader will reach the part of a story where he expects the payoff, only for Rouse to say, as he often does, "I can't tell you about that now."

This book includes commentary from the author in the text (example: "You see, Achilles and King Agamemnon had both lost their temper. I do not make any excuse for either of them; I am just telling the story."). Few of his observations are particularly astute or clever, and almost none of them would be necessary if he had done a better job telling the story.

In the best books of mythology, a writer breathes life into the ancient stories. Rouse, conversely, has made them dry and tedious. There's no real need to be lenient here because there are a million books on Greek mythology, for every target audience, and it shouldn't be difficult to find a better one than Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece, which is frustratingly poor.

Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece: Mythology's Great Tales of Valor and Romance is a 1934 book of Greek mythology by W. H. D. Rouse, who was known for pioneering the Direct Method of teaching Greek and Latin in Britain. This book contains the Greek creation myths, the tales of Heracles, Jason, Theseus, and Perseus, and miscellaneous smaller stories. It is geared to a young adult audience.

Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece has been heavily edited for content and length. The book is only 200 pages, which isn't enough space for half of these stories. Some of the tales are completely butchered; there's so much left out of Odysseus's story, for example, that one wonders why Rouse bothered with it in the first place. At times, Rouse rushes through stories and recounts events in a dry, history book way that completely robs these tales of their charm and appeal.

Rouse doesn't tell the stories in the most coherent fashion - not that the reader can't follow what is going on, but Rouse often leaves out characters' motivations for doing things. He will trudge through a pedestrian narrative only to omit some of the most interesting parts of many of these stories, as well as explanations for why or how things happened. Frequently the reader will reach the part of a story where he expects the payoff, only for Rouse to say, as he often does, "I can't tell you about that now."

This book includes commentary from the author in the text (example: "You see, Achilles and King Agamemnon had both lost their temper. I do not make any excuse for either of them; I am just telling the story."). Few of his observations are particularly astute or clever, and almost none of them would be necessary if he had done a better job telling the story.

In the best books of mythology, a writer breathes life into the ancient stories. Rouse, conversely, has made them dry and tedious. There's no real need to be lenient here because there are a million books on Greek mythology, for every target audience, and it shouldn't be difficult to find a better one than Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece, which is frustratingly poor.

I have always been interested in Greek mythology and this book
was very entertaining. I loved the way the author wrote the book, it's easy to read and understand.

The book Gods, Heroes, and Men of Ancient Greece was fairly good. This book has a numerous amount of short myths. It also has stories of Greek heroes and their adventures. The stories that are contained in this novel are exciting and entertaining. Some of the Gods mentioned in the book are Zeus, Hermes, Apollo, and Artemis. Some of the Greek heroes are Jason and Medeia. If you are into books about mythology, this is the kind of book for you.