The bow and the lyre : a Platonic reading of the "Odyssey"

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. Cover Half-title Page Title Page Copyright c Page Epigraph Contents Notice to the Reader Preface 1 The Beginnings Theodicy Politics Telemachus 2 Pattern and Will Nestor Helen and Menelaus 3 Odysseus’s Choice 4 Among the Phaeacians Shame Paradise Pride 5 Odysseus’s Own Story Memory and Mind Nature Hades Destiny 6 Odysseus’s Lies 7 Nonfated Things Theoclymenus and Eumaeus The Slave Girls The Name and the Scar 8 The Suitors and the City The Suitors The City 9 Recognitions Penelope Hades Laertes Notes Index About the Author