Homer and the question of strife from Erasmus to Hobbes / Jessica Wolfe.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Wolfe's transnational and multilingual study is a landmark work in the study of classical reception that has a great deal to offer to anyone examining the literary, political, and intellectual life of early modern Europe.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

In this rich survey of Homeric reception in the Renaissance, Wolfe (Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) concentrates on the interpretation of strife (in Greek, eris). She moves easily through an extraordinary number and variety of sources, from scholarship on Homer and classical Greek authors to the major writers of the 16th and 17th centuries who were indebted to Homer. As Wolfe shows, Homer was seen either as a champion of rivalry and contention or as a stern critic of strife, and how he was viewed depended on political and cultural circumstances. For example, in chapter 1 Wolfe observes that even though Erasmus "periodically voices his contempt for Achilles and other 'raging bandits' of classical antiquity, his heavy reliance on Homeric allusions in the Adages reflects his appreciation of the special applicability of Homer's wisdom to the resolution of contemporary disputes and conflicts." Of Hobbes, she notes that he translates Homer's strife as "'quarrel,' a word that evokes Lucianic parodies of epic combat as well as the anti-heroic world of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida." The book will appeal to students of classical reception generally and to Renaissance scholars in particular. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Pura Nieto, Brown University