Some Bibliography and Other Resources on Homer and the Homeric Poems

These are but a handful of resources worthy of further investigation. In fact, Homer scholarship is one of the great oceans of classical studies. But these may get you started if you want to pursue the subjects further.

Books

Of the making of books there is no end. Many of them are even worthwhile. The following is but the briefest of summaries of a handful of books you might want to look at in respect to the Homeric corpus.

• Nagy, Gregory, The Best of the Achaeans, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins, 1981. Nagy (pronounced Nahj) is one of the foremost proponents of the theory of traditional composition today; he also exhibits an extremely well-tuned understanding of the dynamics of the poem and the relation of the hero to his culture.
• Lord, Albert, The Singer of Tales. Primarily an investigation of modes of oral composition as the author found them still alive in Yugoslavia, this book presents a striking description of how such things might have come to be written — by largely, but not altogether, forgotten techniques of formula and memorization.
• Kirk, G. S., Homer and the Epic. Cambridge, 1965. A general but well-balanced discussion of the Homeric poems from the last generation of scholars.
• Also see the relevant articles in the Oxford Classical Dictionary.

Films/Videos

Very few worthwhile items have been produced on film about the Trojan War. One of the few is:

• Michael Woods' In Search of the Trojan War. It is a close — if slightly redundant — look at the historicity of Troy and its place in respect to the story of Homer. It's a good three hours of material spun out to six.

Links

I have relatively few of these available right now, but will be adding to this page — return from time to time to find out what's available.