Review by Choice Review
Hedreen (Williams College) explores the nature and function of landscape and architectural settings in representations of episodes in the Trojan War. The book's main focus is to show how various settings in the narrative help to explain the constructs of the stories themselves and the logic that governs their development. Hedreen, an expert on Greek vase painting, is able to shed light on the similarities and differences in the ways that visual and verbal images operate in a narrative construct. He contends that because vase painters in the archaic and early classical periods did not have access to written texts, the visual narratives they produced help explain why there was a great diversity in the rendering of stories. In each of his five chapters, the author focuses on a different story in the epic cycle of the Trojan War in order to test his theories. This book is well written and will appeal mostly to a more specialized audience, who already are somewhat familiar with ancient Greek literature and art. Graduate students and up. J. Pollini University of Southern California
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
