Il testo è arricchito da note utilissime, come assai utili sono le pagine finali con l'elenco in ordine alfabetico dei nomi e l'indicazione delle relative pagine di riferimento ; ciò permette l'agevole utilizzo del libro anche come testo di consultazione. Some may not care for Graves personal input on the myths, but I think it is a useful perspective even if one doesn’t agree with his conclusions. For adherents of particular cults or citizens of specific areas, myths offered a communal viewpoint, a focus for thought; they put people in touch not only with one another’s minds but with those of their forebears and ancestors; they validated each present moment in terms of a much wider picture, both in time and space - they were a binding force.

Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links for which I may be compensated (this does not affect my reviews nor cost you any money, but helps support my site hosting costs). It shouldn't be used for commercial use which includes advertising, marketing, promotion, packaging, advertorials, and consumer or merchandising products. This deluxe two volume edition in a slipcase retells the labours of Hercules, the voyage of the Argonauts, Theseus and the minotaur, Midas and his golden touch, the Trojan War and Odysseus’s journey home. These women were not only the victims of this heinous crime but they also got to be punished for it by the ever jealous Hera. Each story is accompanied by Graves’ interpretation of the origins and deeper meaning of the story, giving a reader an unparalleled insight into the customs and development of the Greek world.Personalised advertising may be considered a “sale” or “sharing” of information under California and other state privacy laws, and you may have a right to opt out. Romy Blümel graduated with a degree in Design and Illustration from Hamburg University of Applied Sciences in 2008. There are many far, far better introductory compilations of Greek myths that don’t tout about nonsense conspiracy theories. In a metaphorical and poetic way, they offered not so much answers to particular questions as ways of beginning to think about answers - and the questions had to do with the nature of the universe, the relationship between human beings and the supernatural, the reasons for certain customs or ways of behaviour and the self-image of this or that community. This volume is based on the Ring Legends of Scandinavia, including the Volsungs and the Eddas, and also the Ring Legends of Germany, such as The Nibelungenlied.

Next we have the two volumes of the Icelandic Sagas published in 1999 and 2002, that are edited, introduced by Magnus Magnusson. I do not know if Robert Graves has a certain predilection towards the salacious (his books, I, Claudius and Claudius the God were pretty lewd) or if he is simply preserving a faithful translation of the stories. On the surface, this would seem to be nothing more or less than an example of performance art presented as literature. Games like Dungeons and Dragons have never appealed to me, and much as I like maps and strange lands, the works of Tolkien leave me cold.

This book was first released in 1996 and it is a fairly scholarly study of the myths, relating them to the way the ancient Greeks lived and thought. Of course, certain amount of gore is to be expected, but my early age experiences with Irena and Jan Parandowski’s renderings of Greek myths into Polish did not fully prepare me for the extent, intensity and denseness of violence, incest, torture, betrayal, and general human irrationality that is present in Graves’s detailed compendium.

This would be an invaluable tool to an academic but as some one who only wanted to read and enjoy the stories I skipped all that and consequently probably only read half the near 750 pages. Thankfully, Graves is a pretty universally ridiculed figure in modern classical scholarship, which is fair because he was a pretty bad classicist.If you are looking for stories with heroes fighting monsters I would suggest you look elsewhere, however if you are looking a deeper understanding of where the characters you know (and either love or hate) come from and interacted with the world, this is for you. Legends from Ancient Rome released in 2008 is edited by Lawrence Norfolk and illustrated by Grahame Baker. This was interesting as I learned some new things and was able to make some connections between the family lines, or names I had heard from other retellings of the myth- I loved discovering something new! If you want to know your Greek mythology but don’t feel like learning ancient languages and reading all Classical writings, this is your next best thing to go to.

My only complaint is that they should have left in Graves' original line references to the primary sources. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Mary Shelley's darkly disturbing tale is illustrated by Angela Barrett and newly introduced by Richard Holmes.A full-leather limited edition (not part of this series) of the same volume was later released in 2010.