Review
"A brilliant digressive essay, full of asides and illustrations. . . . A delight to read." --
Peter Green, New York Review of Books"Like all born teachers, [Vermeule] has the ability to convince you that her subject relates to your own life and culture. . . . A fabulous learning experience, the essays are both lively and totally accessible." --
Boston Globe"No sonorous deductions here about eschatology; no maps of the Greek underworld, charting its circles, names its denizens. The Greek dead can appear as a midge or as an, apparently, full-fleshed man; he is removed from pain, yet can feel it and carries his old scars. . . . All this, and much more than this, is presented . . . by a consummate scholar with a lightness and wit which belie her scholarship. . . . This book could win many converts to the study of Greece and Greek." --
John Boardman, Times Literary Supplement
Product Description
The ancient Greeks devoted a significant portion of their poetic and artistic energy to exploring themes of death. Vermeule examines the facts and fictions of Greek death, including burial and mourning, visions of the underworld, souls and ghosts, the value of heroic death in battle, the quest for immortality, the linked powers of death, sleep, and love, and more.