Authoress of Odyssey (Bristol Phoenix Press - Ignibus Paperbacks) (Paperback)

by Samuel Butler (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Samuel Butler, scholar, painter, pioneer photographer and novelist (author of Erewhon and The Way of All Flesh) was one of the less orthodox of Victorian intellectual provocateurs, who confronted powerful orthodoxies such as the Church, the academic establishment, and scientific Darwinism. During the last decade of his productive life his main concern became the 'Homeric question'. In his youth he had been a classical scholar at Cambridge; but this work of 1897 is unlike any work of mainstream Victorian classicism. His theory - that the Odyssey was written by a woman and (even more startlingly) by one who configured herself in the epic as the Phaeacian princess, Nausicaa - set him on collision course with all the 'authordoxies' of the stuffy, patriarchal establishment of 'Oxbridge' scholarship. His exposition hesitates in a grey area between closely reasoned argument, eccentric tomfoolery and knowing polemicism. The establishment never could determine whether to take it seriously or as an elaborate spoof of their own methodologies. Certainly, Butler himself never let on what his intentions were. Now, in an age when gender studies and reception theory have a compelling influence on readings of the classical world, it is appropriate to make this book available again. The issues involved are examined by Whitmarsh in a totally new introduction. Butler's work continues to challenge, provoke and amuse.

About the Author
Tim Whitmarsh (like Butler himself, a former Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge) is Reader in Greek Literature at the University of Exeter. He is author of 'Greek Literature and the Roman Empire' (Oxford University Press, 2001), 'A Cultural History of Greek Literature' (Polity Press, 2004) and 'Reading the Self in the Ancient Greek Novel' (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

Product Details

• Paperback: 275 pages
• Publisher: Bristol Phoenix Press, Univ of Exeter; 3rd edition (September 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1904675018
• ISBN-13: 978-1904675013
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,388,846 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #38 in

  Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( B ) > Butler, Samuel