Homer: The Poetry of the Past

Ford here addresses the perennial questions of what poetry is, how it came to be, and what it is for, focusing on the critical moment in Western literature when the heroic tales of the Greek oral tradition began to be preserved in writing.

"Ford's Homer is an ingenious and subtle inquiry into ancient poetics, innovative in conception, informed but not burdened by exhaustive scholarship, and executed in an accessible and elegant style. It is a mini-masterpiece that both the scholar and the informed general reader will devour with pleasure and profit."--Choice