The Iliad is one of the most misinterpreted--and thereby maligned--books ever

composed, recited, or written. Eric Larsen's Homer Whole sets out to correct this misreading

of the great epic, to move it out of the caves of primitivism current readers

consign it to and raise it to its proper place as the central foundational work of modern

literary art.

Generalizations like "Homer glorifies war," "Homer's highest value is violence," or

"honor in Homer is gained only through pillage, slaughter, and war" are heard too

often to be...