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Gregory Nagy
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The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry Paperback – August 1, 1981

4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 24 ratings
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Despite widespread interest in the Greek hero as a cult figure, little was written about the relationship between the cult practices and the portrayals of the hero in poetry. The first edition of The Best of the Achaeans bridged that gap, raising new questions about what could be known or conjectured about Greek heroes. In this revised edition, which features a new preface by the author, Gregory Nagy reconsiders his conclusions in the light of the subsequent debate and resumes his discussion of the special status of heroes in ancient Greek life and poetry. His book remains an engaging introduction both to the concept of the hero in Hellenic civilization and to the poetic forms through which the hero is the Iliad and Odyssey in particular and archaic Greek poetry in general.
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  1. Print length
    414 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    The Johns Hopkins University Press
  4. Publication date
    August 1, 1981
  5. Dimensions
    7.87 x 0.59 x 9.84 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0801823889
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0801823886
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

""This is a learned, clever, and disturbing book... One is left with the uneasy feeling that curtains have parted in the wind, giving glimpses of unsuspected realities behind the apparently simple face of Greek heroic poetry." -- M. L. West, Times Literary Supplement

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The Johns Hopkins University Press; First Edition (August 1, 1981)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 414 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0801823889
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0801823886
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.87 x 0.59 x 9.84 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 24 ratings

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Gregory Nagy

Gregory Nagy

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Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
24 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Christopher Cercone
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent work on Greek culture and literature
Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2022
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Readable and insightful explanation of Greek literature. Lively enough for the casual reader, and substantial enough for the scholar. I took two of Professor Nagy’s classes, and his lectures were mesmerizing. He inherited the Greek gift of story telling. Understanding Homeric thought provides insight to our own thinking, literature and entertainment. Probably the best connection between Greek literature and modern thought, written by another of Nagy’s students, is Dr. Jonathan Shay’s ‘Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character’. Shay takes excerpts from The Iliad to illustrate and explain the concepts and phenomena affecting veterans. Well worth a read, especially for vets with unseen (moral) injury. Set your understanding of the Ancient Greek world with the informative insight of Professor Nagy.
One person found this helpful
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Guy P. Smoot
5.0 out of 5 stars Seminal
Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2007
The Best of the Achaeans is indispensable to anyone interested in archaic Greek literature, especially Greek Epic. One will find in it unique insights and useful information about multiples aspects of the hero. Nagy's original thinking and mastery of historical linguistics allows him to perceive connections unnoticed or overlooked by most classicists.
18 people found this helpful
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Monkeytown
5.0 out of 5 stars An innovative and engaging approach to Homer
Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2000
I read the first edition of this book in the early 80s when I was in college, and I have to say that few books stimulated my thought about Greek literature and language as well as this book did. Nagy's thesis is interesting and contoversial (there was quite a bit of debate about it in successive issues of the NY Review of Books), and while I don't wish to give a synopsis of his main points without having read the book in such a long time, I can assure you that his intellectual rigour and clear, beautiful writing will, at the least, help you to new perspectives on the Iliad and the Odyssey. I'm buying myself a new copy right now!
39 people found this helpful
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willard groover
4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent academic publication
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2016
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An excellent followup to Dr. Nagy's Greek Heroes
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David H. Eisenberg
2.0 out of 5 stars Not the best of the Achaeans
Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2015
First I gave it three stars. Then I realized it was just to make me look smarter. Gregory Nagy is deemed a great scholar. Maybe that's unfair. Maybe he is a great scholar and I should not qualify it. For me, the classics are a hobby. I didn't want to feel like I was a high school basketball player saying that something like Dennis Rodman didn't know how to box out his man by giving it too few stars. But, then I realized, okay, I'm a mere babe in the woods compared to him - maybe not learned enough to be his student, but, on the other hand, I have read many books on ancient Greece and many books on Homer. And, I think before I understood and liked almost all of them - the only exception being a book I thought was too simplistic. Many of them contain bits of Homeric Greek and though I am not a scholar, I get by well enough.

And . . . I didn't really like this book. There, I said it. I found it too difficult. I don't mean so difficult that I couldn't understand it at all. But difficult enough so that I didn't want to work hard enough to work through it. And it didn't have to be that way. I've read plenty of books by Harvard/MIT leaders in their field that were neither dumbed down nor lacking in clear prose. Steven Pinker's books come readily to mind. It seemed to me that rather than offering insight, Nagy was trying to make it obtuse. But, perhaps that is unfair and he does not have a grasp on what is intelligible to others.

But, I didn't get his translations either. I don't mean I thought he should have used "rage" instead of "anger" somewhere of that he inserted a word in a sentence that I didn't think was called for in order to give it a flavor he thought was implied. I mean that I would look at a translation of almost every line he translated and think - Say what? But, he's Dennis Rodman and I'm not.

So, I could have rated it three stars, was just about to, in fact, but then I realized that's how the Emperor ends up with no clothes - people trying to make believe they are in on it - whatever "it" may be in some case. And I'm also remembering my Epictetus - If you want to make progress, let people think you are a mindless fool about externals, and do not desire a reputation for knowing about them. So, if I'm a fool, I still didn't like it. I didn't like it and that's why I'm giving it two stars. God, I hope I never meet him. He'll beat me with a scepter.
12 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Charles Vasey
5.0 out of 5 stars Out Of The Steppe
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 23, 2016
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I have, as Ben Jonson would put it, small Latin and less Greek so my review must do service until those with greater knowledge appear. The story of the Iliad - "Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans." is bound up with the Hero cults of Greek poetry and life. A normative system still inspiring Alexander the Great centuries later. To scholars like Nagy these poems and the attendant belief systems are based on a common model: the constant Greek struggle to be best; to be the Best Of The Acheans, the struggle between Hero (many of them demi-gods) and the gods themselves (to name but two). Nagy gives plentiful examples, even returning to the Vedic traditions of that other arm of the horse-breaking, chariot-riding, indo-european invasion. (A world closer to our meat-eating heroes than the classical Greece of fish and oil). Though this is a specialist topic Nagy's explanations are never less than helpful (and there's an index for those of us who forget what pénthos was).
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Zenouf the Birdcatcher
5.0 out of 5 stars Most Satisfactory.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 16, 2016
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A swift and satisfactory purchase. I would thoroughly recommend this seller.
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Charles Heighton
4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting deep dive into Homeric culture.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 7, 2018
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An interesting and informative read. That was surprising easy to tackle. My only warning would be that this book requires a wider knowledge of ancient literature in order to fully comprehend.
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