There have been many works which dealt with the timeless stories of the rage of Achilles and the uncertainty of Odysseus’s homecoming in the ›Iliad‹ and the ›Odyssey‹. This book however provides something which is completely new: Bannert provides a direct view of the poet’s workshop where he created the epic poems without any knowledge of writing as orally presented works of art. He analyzes the entire range of Homer’s narrative technique: snapshots in time and descriptions in slow motion, close-ups and fixations on details, superimposed monologues and stories within stories. In his poetry written 2,800 years ago, Homer demonstrated all those techniques used in literature, theater or films today: the ability to captivate people and to make them curious as to what is going to happen next in a story.
