The Greek Myths

Book excerpt: Robert Graves, classicist, poet, and unorthodox critic, retells the Greek legends of gods and heroes for a modern audience And, in the two volumes of The Greek Myths, he demonstrates with a dazzling display of relevant knowledge that Greek Mythology is “no more mysterious in content than are modern election cartoons.” His work covers, in nearly two hundred sections, the creation myths; the legends of the births and lives of the great Olympians; the Theseus, Oedipus, and Heracles cycles; the Argonaut voyage; the tale of Troy, and much more. All the scattered elements of each myth have been assembled into a harmonious narrative, and many variants are recorded which may help to determine its ritual or historical meaning, Full references to the classical sources, and copious indexes, make the book as valuable to the scholar as to the general reader; and a full commentary on each myth explains and interprets the classical version in the light of today’s archaeological and anthropological knowledge.