Songs on Bronze: The Greek Myths Made Real
Books / Hardcover
Religion & Mythology › Mythology, Fairy Tales, Folklore
ISBN: 0374266638 / Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2005
A retelling of classical Greek mythology brings to life in a fresh new way the ancient stories of Jason and the Argonauts, the travels of Odysseus, Demeter and Persephone, the wrath of Achilles, and Orpheus's excursion into the underworld.
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A vivid, uninhibited retelling of the classic Greek storiesSongs on Bronze is the first major retelling of Greek mythology in half a century; a set of lively, racy, dramatic versions of the great myths, which, in a multicultural society, are recognized more than ever as stories without equal.Most of us would like to know the Greek myths better than we do, and books like Seamus Heaney's Beowulf have demonstrated the power of ancient texts to enchant and enthrall us. And yet the modern translations of the Greek myths have sought to instruct, to edify, or to impart a personal philosophy. Songs on Bronze is different. With this book, Nigel Spivey--a young Cambridge classicist and rising star as a documentary host--gives us the Greek myths as the spellbinding stories they are. In bold, sensuous prose, he tells of Demeter and Persephone, of Jason and the Argonauts, of the wrath of Achilles and the travels of Odysseus, of Oedipus's crime and Orpheus's excursion into the underworld. In his hands, these stories are revealed anew as outsize tales of love and strife, of secret compacts and open rivalries, of lust and desire.Songs on Bronze is a fresh revision of the classics that is likely to become a classic in its own right.
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