This concise book is an ideal introduction to Homer – the poet and his two great epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey.

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• Student-friendly introduction to Homer.
  
• Provides historical background and literary readings of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
  
• Makes use of the author’s own original research.
  
• Assumes no prior knowledge of Greek.

Barry B. Powell is Halls-Bascom Professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His previous publications include Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet (1991), A Short Introduction to Classical Myth (2001), Writing and the Origins of Greek Literature (2002), and Classical Myth (fourth edition, 2004).