Most studies of the Homeric poems have been dominated by the historical and anthropological views, concentrating on their place in the oral tradition and diverting attention from the nature of the poetry itself. Paolo Vivante offers us an intense look at the Iliad and the Odyssey, focusing on the poetic treatment of story, characters, and nature.

Vivante discusses Homer's sense of time, the capacity to resolve any complex event into the creative moments of its realization. Rather than narrative, Homer presents events in the making, as the story takes shape through the...