Essay On the Life and Poetry Of Homer [Paperback]

This bilingual edition, with introduction and brief commentary, makes accessible for the first time in English a text of great importance for the history and interpretation of Homer. Although attributed to Plutarch, theEssayis probably the work of agrammaticusof the second and third century and is the single most valuable source of evidence for the nature of the teaching of Homer in the schools of the Roman Empire. Well represented in the manuscript tradition, theEssaywas used as prefatory material by Renaissance editors of Homer, beginning with theeditio princeps(1488), and so exercised a powerful influence on Renaissance and early-modern readers, who often refer to Plutarch as an authority on Homer. The newly edited Greek text is presented with facing translation.