Textkit Greek and Latin Forums

Hello All,

I am getting a bit more serious about Homeric (even though I'm waaaay behind on turning in translations to the Odyssey Group) and I'm looking at procuring a commentary. These are the commentaries recommended by my Classical Greek prof....have any of you used them? WHat would you recommend??

Here's the list:

Bloom, Harold Homer's Odyssey
Heubeck, Alfred and Hoekstra, Arie A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey
Page, Denys The Homeric Odyssey
Powell, Barry B. and Morris, I. A New Companion to Homer
Schein, Seth Reading the Odyssey
Wace, Alan and Stubbings, Frank A Companion to Homer

Any comments would be greatly appreciated. I am mainly looking for syntactical/grammatical commentaries....my prof said he thought that the Heubeck commentary might be my best bet, but he wasn't entirely sure.

I'm not familiar with Homeric commentaries, but have two comments. If Harold Bloom is the Harold Bloom of Princeton, I would stay away for two reasons: his English scholarship leaves something to be desired, and I'm under the impression that he has little to no Greek. The Wace and Stubbings Companion to Homer is a wonderful book, but it is not a commentary. It is a collection of studies on Homeric subjects such as geography, history, culture, food and clothing, technology, and even a helpful section on Homeric Grammar. I found it enjoyable and scholarly, but perhaps someone else would know if it is the most current?

Kopio wrote:my prof said he thought that the Heubeck commentary might be my best bet, but he wasn't entirely sure.

I've not seen any of the others, but I find the Heubeck very helpful. The Cunliffe Homeric dictionary covers any unusual verb forms not covered by Heubeck et al.

I myself have never read anything written by Harold Bloom, so maybe this is pure bias, but I am highly suspicious of him just because of the way his books are presented. My (somewhat romantic) ideal of a commentator is some non-famous person who has read their literary piece for years and fallen in love with them, and their commentary is the fruit of their years with the piece. However, Harold Bloom pours out commentators on anything considered to be "literature" by enough people, and the way his books are presented "Harold Bloom's Authors : Blah Blah", they seem to make him more important that the author themself - "Alice Walker used to be a good writer, but now that the mighty Harold Bloom has bothered to comment on her works, she's a great author. Aha! See!".

Now, having never read a thing by Harold Bloom, he could be this amazing genius worth all the buzz. But I suspect that he is just being pushed by publishers on laypeople.

i always start with the free ones

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/pt ... 99.04.0055