This book comprises the first English translation of John Tzetzes’ Allegories of the Odyssey, a long allegorical commentary on Homer’s Odyssey in 15-syllable verse. It is the authors’ second work on Tzetzes to be published in recent years, following their translation of the Allegories of the Iliad (Cambridge 2015). Tzetzes divides his commentary into 24 sections corresponding to the Homeric books. After a short summary of each book, he interprets allegorically the Homeric verses that refer to the pagan gods.
The authors have done an admirable job of rendering such a difficult composition into clear and understandable English while remaining faithful to the Greek text. This English translation of Tzetzes’ Allegories of the Odyssey is welcome in the fields of Byzantine and classical studies, as it makes available to a broader audience an atypical medieval text that can redirect our ways of approaching Homer, while offering us insight into the interesting methods of an idiosyncratic philologist.
Maria Tomadaki
The Journal of Hellenic Studies
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