BOW AND THE LYRE,THE CB
Publication date:
26 December 1996Length of book:
216 pagesISBN-13: 9780847683673
In this exciting interpretation of the Odyssey, the late renowned scholar Seth Benardete suggests that Homer may have been the first to philosophize in a Platonic sense. He argues that the Odyssey concerns precisely the relation between philosophy and poetry and, more broadly, the rational and the irrational in human beings. In light of this possibility, Bernardete works back and forth from Homer to Plato to examine the relation between wisdom and justice and tries to recover an original understanding of philosophy that Plato, too, recovered by reflecting on the wisdom of the poet. At stake in his argument is no less than the history of philosophy and the ancient understanding of poetry. The Bow and the Lyre is a book that every classicist and historian of philosophy should have.
Guided by the fundamental problems opened up through his studies of the Platonic dialogues, Seth Benardete unravels the intertwined threads of Homer's Odyssey and finds at its core the choice Odysseus makes to be human-to return home rather than accept Calypso's offer of immortality. This choice reflects the understanding Odysseus has of his fate, on which the Olympian gods have in turn imposed a design of their own, assigning Odysseus a part in their plan of withdrawal. Once home, Odysseus strings his bow and makes it sing, Homer tells us, as easily as a bard his lyre; but whether the apparent fusion of rationality with spiritedness in the soul of Odysseus allows him to share Homer's perspective is the Platonic question that animates Benardete's penetrating and illuminating reading of the Odyssey. -- Ronna Burger, Tulane University The Bow and the Lyre is a work of matchless erudition and insight. -- Harvey C. Mansfield, Harvard University Bernardete's procedure frees him to take seriously the problems of the surface on their own terms. -- Martin Sitte, New York, NY Albert E. Gunn and Staff The Bow and the Lyre is a treasure of startling observations, but it is also much more. His book is a remarkable account of the Odyssey ... There is really nothing else like it in print. -- Michael Davis, Sarah Lawrence College