Definitive, comprehensive and unparalleled - a fresh look for Graves's classic retelling of the Greek Myths
Robert Graves, classicist, poet and unorthodox critic, retells the Greek legends of gods and heroes for a modern audience.
He demonstrates with a dazzling display of relevant knowledge that Greek mythology is 'no more mysterious in content than are modern election cartoons'.
All the scattered elements of each myth are assembled into a harmonious narrative, and many variants are recorded which may help to determine its ritual or historical meaning. Full indexes and references to the classical sources make the book as valuable to the scholar as the general reader. And a full commentary on each myth interprets the classical version in the light of contemporary archaeological and anthropological knowledge. %%%Robert Graves, classicist, poet and unorthodox critic, retells the Greek legends of gods and heroes for a modern audience. He demonstrates with a dazzling display of relevant knowledge that Greek mythology is 'no more mysterious in content than are modern election cartoons'. All the scattered elements of each myth are assembled into a harmonious narrative, and many variants are recorded which may help to determine its ritual or historical meaning. Full indexes and references to the classical sources make the book as valuable to the scholar as the general reader. And a full commentary on each myth interprets the classical version in the light of contemporary archaeological and anthropological knowledge.
ROBERT GRAVES (1895–1985) was a preeminent English poet, novelist, critic, translator, and scholar of classical mythology. He served in World War I—an experience recounted in his 1929 autobiography, Good-Bye to All That —and later became the first professor of English literature at the University of Cairo. Best remembered today for his acclaimed historical novels about the Roman emperor Claudius, I, Claudius and Claudius the God, his other books include Count Belisarius, Lawrence and the Arabs, They Hanged My Saintly Billy, Homer's Daughter, The Golden Fleece, The Siege and Fall of Troy, Ann at Highwood Hall, The White Goddess, The Hebrew Myths, and Collected Poems. He is also the co-author of The Reader Over Your Shoulder: A Handbook for Writers of English Prose.