Anthony O'Hear presents a personal tour of the most impressive, influential and era-defining books mankind has ever produced. "Paradise Lost", "The Canterbury Tales", "Don Quixote": great literature can be read by anyone, with a little help. Anthony O'Hear leads the way with this captivating journey through two-and-a-half millennia of books as dark, powerful, erotic, thrilling, politically astute and awe-inspiring as any modern bestseller. We begin with Homer, whose poems of epic struggle have made him the father of Western ...
Read More
Anthony O'Hear presents a personal tour of the most impressive, influential and era-defining books mankind has ever produced. "Paradise Lost", "The Canterbury Tales", "Don Quixote": great literature can be read by anyone, with a little help. Anthony O'Hear leads the way with this captivating journey through two-and-a-half millennia of books as dark, powerful, erotic, thrilling, politically astute and awe-inspiring as any modern bestseller. We begin with Homer, whose poems of epic struggle have made him the father of Western literature. After Greek tragedy, Plato, and Virgil's "Aeneid" comes Ovid, whose encyclopaedic "Metamorphoses" is an inexhaustible source for European art and literature. Via St Augustine we reach Dante, the author of "The Divine Comedy", a sublime, terrifying tour through "Hell", "Purgatory" and an ecstatic vision of "Paradise". Chaucer, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Milton, Pascal, Racine and finally Goethe complete the cast list. In each case, O'Hear patiently draws out themes, focuses on key passages and explains why they are important. Personal, passionate, painstakingly researched and beautifully illustrated, this is a grand work of reference. But it is also a narrative history shot through with a love of literature, and a deeply-held belief in its power to shape everyone's world.
Read Less
Add this copy of The Great Books: From the Iliad and the Odyssey to to cart. $5.91, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Atlanta rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Brownstown, MI, UNITED STATES, published 2008 by Icon Books Company.
Add this copy of The Great Books: a Journey Through 2, 500 Years of the to cart. $37.15, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2008 by Icon.
All Editions of The Great Books: From "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" to Goethe's "Faust": A Journey Through 2,500 Years of the West's Classic Literature